Windows Media Player Website bug

(approx 2003/11/17)

This isn't actually a bug with Windows Media Player, but with the Microsoft website for WMP. The download page for WMP is at:

http://www.windowsmedia.com/download/download.asp

If you try to download WMP for OSX using Explorer it works fine.

But if you try it with a different browser, such as Safari, you'll notice that the download URL is screwed up:

http://redir.windowsmedia.com/ct/wmc-EN-US/0/MPDL0PDN1/WMC.htm?page=http://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediaplayer/WMPMAC/7.1.3/MacOS/EN-US/WindowsMediaInstaller.hqx%20

To fix it, you need to first pull off the redir script at the front that doesn't seem to work for other browsers (or at least Safari):

http://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediaplayer/WMPMAC/7.1.3/MacOS/EN-US/WindowsMediaInstaller.hqx%20

And then you need to pull off that '%20' (the URL encoding for a space) that I'm sure they just mistakenly put on the end there..:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediaplayer/WMPMAC/7.1.3/MacOS/EN-US/WindowsMediaInstaller.hqx

And now you can finally download WMP.

Interesting that you can only download it with IE.

Hrm.

WMP is a Microsoft product

IE is a Microsoft product.

Nah, I'm "sure" it's just a coincidence.