Windows Media Player 11 is the most recent version of the player, which is available for Windows XP as well as Windows Vista. This new version features many changes. The Media Library no longer presents the media items (such as albums and artists) in a tree-based listing. Rather, on selecting the category in the left panel, the contents will appear on the right, in a graphical manner with thumbnails featuring album art or other art depicting the item—a departure from textual presentation of information.

Missing album art can be added directly to the placeholders in the Library itself. Views for Music, Pictures, Video and Recorded TV are separate and can be chosen individually from the navigation bar. Entries for Pictures and Video show their thumbnails. Windows Media Player 11 also includes the Windows Media Format 11 runtime which adds low bitrate support (below 128 kbps for WMA Pro), support for ripping music to WMA Pro 10 and updates the original WMA to version 9.2.