How To Set Windows Media Player As Default In Windows 10

On Windows 10, Microsoft has set modern apps as default for most file types. The Groove Music in Windows 10 is the default music or media player. While the Groove Music app in Windows 10 is pretty good and it has been revamped with several new features, it still lacks a couple of features, and it isn’t as good as Windows Media Player or any other well-known desktop player for that matter.

Even though Microsoft hasn’t made any significant improvements to Windows Media Player for a long time, it’s still one of the best media player software out there for Windows operating system. The problem with the default Groove music in Windows 10 is its unpredictable behavior and, more importantly, takes a reasonable amount of time to open when compared to the classic Windows Media Player.

If you like Windows Media Player for some reason and want to set it as the default player in Windows 10, you can follow the given below instructions.

Method 1 of 3

Make Windows Media Player default in Windows 10

Step 1: Open Start menu, click the Settings icon to open the Settings app.

Step 2: Navigate to Apps > Default apps page. Scroll down to see the Music Player section.

Step 4: As you can see in the picture above, Groove Music is the default music or media player on Windows 10. To change the default player to Windows Media Player, click on the Groove Music entry to see Choose an app, click on Windows Media Player entry to make it as the default music player on Windows 10.

That’s it!

Method 2 of 2

Set Windows Media Player as the default player in Windows 8 or Windows 8.1

Step 1: Switch to the Start screen, type Default Programs, and press the Enter key to open Default Programs window.

Alternatively, you can open Control Panel (see how to open Control Panel in Windows 8/8.1), click Programs, and then click Default Programs.

Step 2: Here, click on the option titled Set your default programs to begin scanning for all installed desktop programs as well as apps installed from the Store.

Step 3: In the left pane, under programs, locate the entry titled Windows Media Player.

Step 4: Select Windows Media Player entry in the left pane and then click Set this program as default option present in the right-side to set Windows Media Player as the default player for every file type that it supports, or click Choose defaults for this program option to make WMP default for specific file types.

We suggest you click on the second option (Choose defaults for this program) if you wish to set WMP as default only for audio files or individual file types. Clicking Set this program as default (the first option) will set WMP default for both audio and video file types that it supports.

Click the second option, check the file types that you would like to associate with WMP, and then click the Save button.

Method 3 of 3

Quicky set WMP as the default media player

Use this method if you want to set Windows Media Player as default only for a particular type of file. That is, you don’t need to open up Default Programs to set WMP as the default player for one or two file types. Simply follow the below-mentioned instructions to quickly set WMP as default.

Step 1: Right-click on the file type that you would always want to open in Windows Media Player, click Open with, click Choose default program, and then select Windows Media Player to set it as default for the selected file type.

For instance, if you would like to set Windows Media Player as default for MP3 file type extension, simply right-click on it, click Open with, click Choose default programs and then select Windows Media Player to set WMP as default player to open MP3 files.

How to make Windows Photo Viewer default on Windows 10 guide might also interest you.