Enable media streaming on Windows 10

If you have stored music and movies on your PC and want to play them to other devices, such as your mobile phone, tablets, you can enable media streaming on your desktop, then use a media player on the mobile to play the media content. On Windows 10, Microsoft has migrated its DLNA-compliant feature to send media to other devices. You don’t need a third-party DLNA media server software.

Search for ‘windows media player‘ on your Windows 10 computer to quickly find and launch the program. Once the Windows Media Player opens, click Stream from the top toolbar, then choose ‘Turn on media streaming ….‘ from the drop-down menu.

turn on media streaming from windows media player for windows 10

The Media Streaming Options window opens. Here you choose media streaming options for computers and devices. Click Turn on media streaming button to setup the media server on your Windows PC.

turn on media streaming from control panel media streaming options windows 10 computer

You can give your media library a name, choose to show your device to local network. Hit OK button to complete.

windows 10 computer control panel media streaming options

Go back to the Windows Media Player. Click Organize > Manage libraries, then choose to add your music, videos, pictures and recorded TV to the media server to be streamed to other devices in your local network. You can add your music albums, movie albums to the media server to be played to other devices connected to the same local Wi-Fi network, such as your smartphone, tablet or other computers.

windows media player manage libraries windows 10 pc

You can then stream video files and music over the network from your PC. There are many media players even free ones for mobile can help you connect to media server on desktop computer, such as VLC media player for Android, PlayerXtreme media player, etc.

Install Windows Media Player for Windows 10

Windows Media Player is a system program with the Windows OS. If you can’t find this software on your PC, open the classic Control Panel, click Uninstall a program under Programs to open Programs and Features window. On the left pane, click Turn Windows features on or off link. The Windows Features dialog pops up. Find Windows Media Player, click to select it if not yet, then hit OK, then Yes to install Windows Media Player on Windows 10 computer.

Third-party Media Server alternatives

  • Plex Media Server and Player: organizes all of your video, music, and photo collections, and gives you instant access to them on all of your devices.
  • Emby Media Server: brings all of your home videos, music, and photos together into one place and automatically converts and streams your media on-the-fly to play on all your devices.