We've all rushed to get our hands the beta of Microsoft's Windows 7, but own up, who took the time to read the associated release notes?
For those who didn't, the Windows 7 beta contains various known issues relating to Windows Media Center and MP3 file support. The rather-alarming MP3 problem is detailed by Microsoft as follows:
"Every time that metadata is edited in an MP3 file that already contains lots of metadata in the file header, some audio at the beginning of the track may be lost permanently. Up to several seconds of audio may be lost."
In other words, there's a chance that some-or-all of the music in your library may be permanently cropped. To make matters worse, Windows Media Player is by default set to automatically add missing metadata, effectively triggering the potential for automatic file corruption.
Fortunately, a fix for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows 7 beta is now available via Windows Update, and if your music library is still intact, we'd strongly urge all users to install the patch. Alternatively, the patches are also available from Microsoft's Help and Support website as standalone downloads.
They don't call it a beta for nothing.
Useful link: Microsoft knowledge base support 961367
