Solution to Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11) Cannot Stream and Play MMS Media Protocol in Vista

Occasionally, Windows Media Player 11 (WMP 11 or WMP11) that comes with Windows Vista has problem streaming and playing media contents, be it audio or video, from Internet that use MMS protocol. When click on a link on web page that features URL:MMS protocol, or when watching a embedded video clip streaming via MMS protocol, the Windows Media Player does not play the movie, anime, trailer and other video contents, or another media player been launched to stream and playback the video instead.

Windows Media Player 11 (WMP11) cannot be used to play MMS streaming video contents by default, when clicked on URL link location or on web pages embedded with video clips because of program association with the URL:MMS protocol has been altered and disassociated.

Windows Vista, and also Windows XP checks program association that been linked with MMS protocol to determine its next course of action and uses which associated program to play the media. Disassociation from WMP or association of MMS protocol with another media player causes Windows doesn’t know what to do when dealing with URL starts with MMS://, or start the video playback in other media player.

To resolve the issue, simply set back the program association of MMS protocol to WMP 11. To do so in Windows Vista, go to Control Panel -> Programs -> Default Programs, and then click on Associate a file type or protocol with a specific program link. In “Set Associations” window, locate and highlight MMS (URL:MMS Protocol), then click on Change program button to select Windows Media Player from the list of programs available.

The correct setting to let WMP 11 handles all MMS streaming media contents should looks like figure below:

Here’s another solution to fix WMP cannot stream or play MMS media on unsupported protocol.