This is a mini-rant about usability, with a workaround – so excuse me if this isn’t quite in the same vane as my usual posts.
I’m pretty sticky about how my file names should be formatted when WMP rips a CD, my preference being:
Track Number – Artist – Album – Song Title.ext
WMP gives you the option of selecting/arranging fields in any number of ways, and gives you some predefined options for the separator. One of them is the dash, which I have selected, and then I use my trusty Total Commander to do mass renaming after the fact.
I just took it for granted that these options were hard-coded into the app, until I noticed that my Media Centre PC would rename files based on my settings in WMP when I was fiddling around with different options, praying that the latest updates had given me some new options :). I popped open RegMon to get an idea of where these settings were being save, fiddled some more with the settings in WMP, and then into the registry I went while hoping that the separator wasn’t just being stored as an index. Lo and behold, it’s a string.
There is a key called “CDRecordFileSeparator”, which is a REG_SZ (string)in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences. Change it, and the result is seen immediately in WMP.
Now, I have to ask: Surely they could have had an option called “Custom” which allows you to put in your own separator? It must’ve come up during someone’s tests! End of mini-rant.
If you do decide to use your own custom setting - take note that if you go back into the Rip settings tab in media player the drop-down is set to (None) and if you apply any new settings your custom separator is overwritten.