What Is MTP?

Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) is a new protocol and accompanying set of drivers developed by Microsoft to connect portable devices to a Windows XP PC and synchronize digital media content between those devices and the PC. MTP is geared toward portable devices with hard drives; flash-based devices will continue to use Mass Storage Class (MSC), a broadly supported protocol whose drivers are already included with Windows XP, 2000, and Me. In general, users will have to buy new devices that support MTP, although some existing devices will be upgradeable.

Among the benefits of MTP are the following:

Driverless installation. Previously, manufacturers of hard-drive-based portable media players had to write their own drivers to run on top of the Windows Media Device Manager (WMDM) API. This could cause installation headaches and hardware conflicts, and sometimes required users to install and use custom software to transfer files. In contrast, all MTP-compatible devices use drivers that Microsoft is shipping with Windows Media Player 10, and users will be able to perform all transfer and synchronization functions from within the Player.