Hi all...

I am writing a simple MP3 player in VB.Net using the Windows Media Player (WMP) COM object. My problem is that it will only seem to allow me to use the v6.4 methods/properties etc and none of the v7.x ones which is what I want to use.

Here's what I've done:
1. Downloaded WMP7.1 and installed it. (I also downloaded the WMP SDK to get the documentation and exmples).
2. Started a new VB.Net windows application.
3. Added a reference to the WMP to the Toolbox (via "Customise Toolbox") by selecting the Windows Media Player from the list of available COM objects (msdxm.ocx).

This is where the problem starts - the only available MediaPlayer object is msdxm.ocx which is v6.4 - so how do I specify the OCX or DLL for Version 7.1?! If I look in the \WINNT\System32 folder there are the following files: WMPCORE.DLL (v7.10, 769kb) and WMP.OCX (v7.01, 184kb)... so I assume it's one of these I need. But I can *not* seem to get Visual Studio .Net to include either of these as references. Even if I click 'Browse' on the references dialog and try to add either of the above files it just won't do it!!!
(It thinks about it for a few seconds but does not add the new objects to the existing list).

This is driving me bananas!!! I'm stuck with v6.4 functionality which is not what I want and just don't know how to solve this.
I'm not a VB or .Net expert so I can't understand what I'm doing wrong. The MediaPlayer SDK docs are *useless* - they don't give any programming examples or tell you which COM object should be used for v7.x. I have also searched and searched the 'Net to see if I can work out what's happening with no luck - *please*, if anyone can help me I'd very much appreciate it!!

Mike.