ActiveMovie was the immediate ancestor of Windows Media Player 6.x, and was a streaming media technology now known as DirectShow, developed by Microsoft to replace Video for Windows. ActiveMovie allows users to view media streams, whether distributed via the Internet, an intranetorCD-ROMs.
Originally announced in March 1996,[1] the first version was released in May 1996 bundled with the beta version of Internet Explorer 3.0.[2]
When ActiveMovie was installed an option was added to the Start Menu to launch the ActiveMovie Control. This allowed users to play multimedia files and thus was a rudimentary media player.
In March 1997, Microsoft announced that ActiveMovie was going to become part of the DirectX set of technologies,[3] and by July it was being referred to as DirectShow.[4]
Version 5.2 of Windows Media Player would remove the ActiveMovie Control icon from the Start Menu upon installation. Microsoft provided instructions for reinstalling the icon on its website. [5]
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