I am trying to get the 'Now Playing' in MSN Live Messenger to work but it needs WMP to be installed even though I am using another media player (J.River) for my audio.
No way, until the 26th of October when MS releases the Media Pack for Windows N. Reinstall the non-N version, is far better because as you noticed Windows Media Player is used by a lot of apps so you don't need such an OS. And it is also designed only for users within the EU area...
I think you can do that with 3rd party softwares, Winamp have a plugin to display the the information of what you are playing on MSN messenger...
Some programs, like Premiere Pro, will not work without windows media DLLs. To avoid headaches download and install standard Enterprise or Professional version.
Everybody needs to get on Windows 8 professional if want to use Media player plain and simple i uninstalled N ages ago due to not having Media player ...
I have Windows Media Player working except that it can't play .mpeg or .mpg files. It can play .wmv, .avi, .flv, etc., but not .mpg. Anybody else have this?