The window for this feature could use some drag-and-drop simplicity. New customization options let you create and save the view you want on your library, although setting up a new view is more cumbersome that it needs to be. People with extensive music libraries (it supports up to 100,000 files) will appreciate the new split-screen views, which let you see what's currently playing as well as the music in your library. This latest offering lacks the two or three big new features that usually come with a version upgrade, but it has more than enough minor features for everyone. River Media Center 11.0's start page-notice the new Action Window in the lower-left corner. Too many of the controls still reside behind right-clicks and multiple contextual menus. The changes represent a patch job to an interface that needs an extreme makeover. New Media Mode buttons in the top right let you switch to different areas (Everything, Music, Images, Video, and Text). A new Action Window in the lower left provides one-click access to commonly used commands. Media Center veterans will notice a slightly refined interface, although improvements designed to simplify task switching only serve to junk up the controls. Choose the custom install and walk through it attentively. Sadly, that's par for the course with media players. River Media Center 11.0, or it will grab file and CD associations you may not want it to have. We like the idea of using one app to control everything, but we'll gladly stick with Windows Media Player and Musicmatch. With each version, Media Center adds more features but never addresses the interface problems that have made it cumbersome and difficult.

Jriver media center 28 review