Windows 10 will support .FLAC and .MKV

High-end audio enthusiasts love FLAC since it promises to preserve everything just as it was heard in the studio. Unfortunately, it isn’t the most widely-supported of formats, but it appears as if it’s going to get a warm embrace in Windows 10. Gabriel Aul of Microsoft’s Windows Insider program tweeted out a screenshot showing FLAC support in Windows Media Player, later adding that the OS is offering platform-level support – so any compatible app will now be able to play the files without a plug-in. Given that Microsoft also recently let slip that it’ll support the .MKV container in its next-gen OS, it’s clear that Redmond is reaching out to the inner AV geek in all of us.

Microsoft has released Windows 10 build 9860 and if you haven’t downloaded it yet, here is how you can do so. Since its release, we have been digging through the new OS and finding all kinds of new features that were not announced when the build was released. One item that is new in Windows 10 that was not present in Windows 8.1 is support for MKV files out of the box. For those who do not know, MKV files are a popular format for movies and the addition of this support will likely appease many Windows users. If you want to test out support for MKV on your install, you can download a sample video from Jellyfish. After the file downloads, when you open it up, Windows will ask you what app you want to use to open this type of file with; select Windows Media Player. After you select WMP, a warning will pop up saying that the player does not support this file but if you click ‘Yes’, the file will then play. We tested this in Windows 8.1 and when you try to play the file in that OS, Windows Media Player will not play the content if you try to bypass the warning. This means that Windows 10 does have support for MKV, even if it is early in the implementation, for the file type.