Microsoft has some good news for movie fans. If you want to watch .mov files in Windows 7 (read our full Windows 7 review), you don't need to install Apple's QuickTime. Bye, bye annoying system tray icon! Adios, Apple update!
The support for .mov files was mentioned deep in a long list of changes that are coming to the Windows 7 Release Candidate.
On the Engineering Windows 7 blog, in a post entitled 'Some changes since beta for the RC', Chaitanya Sareena, Senior Program Manager on the Core User Experience team, talks up improved playback support for video content from digital camcorders and cameras:
"We've since added support for Windows Media Player to natively support the .mov files used to capture video for many common digital cameras," writes Sareena.
While this may delight owners of cameras which output in the .mov format, it's also good news for anyone who enjoys watching movies on their PC, as movie trailers, particularly those on Apple Movie Trailers, come in .mov format, and so require QuickTime (or a freeware player such as VLC) to view.
Windows users who install QuickTime are then nagged with pop-ups from the Apple update software prompting them to install other Apple software such as iTunes and Safari.
And while this move brings wider camera support, and rids Windows users of those annoying nag screens, it also has the added benefit for Microsoft of making one Apple application less necessary to download.
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Your comments (19) Click to add a new comment
farron
December 31st 2009
19. texaster, Microsoft does have similar product to Flash. It is called Silverlight.
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texaster
December 26th 2009
18. This article is quite biased and ignorant. All you would have to do is uncheck (or not check) the boxes on the quicktime install that "ask" if it can update automatically, reside in your tool bar, and other "annoying" things. Your entire foundation for this article is that you chose the wrong options!
Of course PC users hate quicktime. MS made sure of that, LOL. I just got a laptop for my father w/ windows 7 and the verdict is now in - Windows still sucks. Well, insofar as IE should just come with .mov plugins already installed like .swf, but it does not. The only reason it plays .swf files without a problem is that MS doesn't have a competing product with Flash to shove down your throats, so they play nice with flash. If they had such a program as, for instance, MS MyAnimation Factory then you all would be complaining about how much Flash sucks.
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ralphpink03
December 8th 2009
17. This is a big problem for me, as i use premier pro and the H.264 format for uploading to you tube, to do this i need quick time pro.
If i cant find a patch or a solution i will have to go back to XP, what a waste of time, unless anyone can help?
R
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cyberotechradar
October 13th 2009
16. The .mov format provided within Windows 7 only suits a very limited set of movie files common pretty much exclusively on digital cameras and that alone doesn't really solve the ongoing problems faced by originators, distributors and consumers of media products wrapped in Apple's 'one size kinda fits all' .mov file format.
In any case, the Windows Media player does support most standard .mov exported files already.
The problem is not so much offline viewing as that of online viewing. Oh, and BTW QT Player does support a full screen view without the Pro Registration.
I would most definitely agree that making the installation of the QT plugin as painless and as strictly pertinent as say installing the Flash plugin would be great;The only real need for iTunes is if you are buying from the iTunes store. Furthermore only Flash video comes anywhere near as close to being as truly cross platform as QuickTime does.
In short, some sort of supporting framework / dynamic library will continue to be needed on Windows 7 for the playing of the various kinds of cross platform media content both online and offline , Flash, QT, DivX and a few more besides.
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ghynson
March 24th 2009
15. It's about friggin time,..
Quicktime ranks right up there with microwaving a turd straight from Mr. Jobs poobutt.
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tracyann
March 6th 2009
14. The ability to play .mov files without Apples Quicktime has been built into Linux for several years. Microsoft has finally caught up.
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