Can I recover Windows 7 Media Player playlists?

After migrating to Windows 10 (less than an hour ago) I find that all my lovingly created playlists have disappeared now I'm on Media Player 12.

Is there some way of importing them, presuming I can find them on my system?

After migrating to Windows 10 (less than an hour ago) I find that all my lovingly created playlists have disappeared now I'm on Media Player 12.

Is there some way of importing them, presuming I can find them on my system?

Welcome to windowssh blog Swifty!
I didn't have that problem, but you could try copy & paste or better yet moving them using the move option in File Explorers ribbon. If you haven't deleted your Win7 backup(Windows.old) folder through disk cleanup you should be able to mount it and browse, if not with file explorer then 7Zip.

... better yet moving them using the move option in File Explorers ribbon.

Cliff, thanks for your quick response!

I have two slight problems with this approach:

1. I don't have any idea where in Windows.old my playlists might be.
2. I don't know where to put the playlists in my new Windows 10 system.

I'm sure I could find them (actually, one playlist - Party Shuffle - survived, so that tells me where to put playlists).

Another possible snag is that my playlists were mostly the "auto" variety, where I set conditions for tracks to be included rather than just listing the tracks. Do these even exist in WMP12? I used to struggle to find the edit function for auto playlists, but I've just found it in WMP12 (the same place it was in WMP10/11) so at least I can re-create the auto playlists if necessary

1. I don't have any idea where in Windows.old my playlists might be.
2. I don't know where to put the playlists in my new Windows 10 system.

The answer to both is: Music Folder

I'm making progress, but now have a more pressing problem...
My music library contains thousands of CD's yet WMP12 is showing only about 20 albums.
Is there a way to persuade WMP12 to re-scan my music directory, or do I just have to be patient?

I'm making progress, but now have a more pressing problem...
My music library contains thousands of CD's yet WMP12 is showing only about 20 albums.
Is there a way to persuade WMP12 to re-scan my music directory, or do I just have to be patient?

Tools>manage libraries>remove & re-add library locations and then wait... wait.... wait... go shopping, eat out, do something else while it rebuilds. You might want to make sure you have volume leveling turned on too, in options. After that click Tools>Apply media information changes.

Tools>manage libraries>remove & re-add library locations and then wait... wait.... wait...

Three days of waiting and I think my library has rebuilt itself.
Unfortunately, I've lost the data that I stored in the "Custom 1" field, since the library is rebuilt from the tags in my music files, and online resources. My "Custom 1" field held the place where each track in my library came from. I'm a bit paranoid about being able to prove that my music collection is legal, should the RIAA come looking for me...

Hi Swifty. I created a music folder on another drive connected to my PC and link that to WMP. I started doing this with XP and haven't had any problems with each new version of WMP accessing the contents of my many playlists and songs.

necro but I figured it out just now and thought I would post better solution:

navigate to c:users<your account name>AppdatalocalMicrosoftMedia Player (on your windows 7 image) and copy to same place on your Windows 10 install

Enjoy