Windows Media Player constantly updating media library

Anonymous

windows media player 12 constantly updating media library

Why is wmp12 constantly updating the media library. Is there anyway to turn this off.It gets heavy on system resources and also slows down the player.does anybody have a solution?

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Anonymous

I've struggled with same problem for a whole day and found a workaround. There is a special file called "wmpfolders.wmdb" which stored information about all folders looked through by WMP. You can find this file in you local app folder: c:\Users[your name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player. What you can do with this file is mark a folder so WMP will ignore it and will not update any files stored in this folder. To do so edit this file with any text editor (it just a plain XML) and replace Exclude="0" with Exclude="-1" to mark folder as excluded.

You can exclude specific subfolders or any top level folder.

Hope it helps someone.

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Anonymous

Hello All,

Thank you for using Microsoft Answers forums. You may have corrupted files. Use the System File Checker tool (SFC.exe). To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open an elevated command prompt. To do this, click****Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow.

2. Type the following command, and then press ENTER:

sfc /scannow

The sfc /scannow command scans all protected system files and replaces incorrect versions with correct Microsoft versions.

Thanks for using the Answers Forum. Please let us know how this works out.

Joseph

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

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Anonymous

I was having this problem, but for it appears related to the setting "Maintain my star ratings as global ratings in files", found under the Library tab of the preferences. Turning it off seems to have stopped the problem. This is not ideal, but perhaps I'll just turn this back on every few weeks, write my ratings back to the files, and then turn it off again.

I posted a more detailed account here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itpromedia/thread/4b6db717-1fb1-4225-ab36-9dcc9efc2424

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Anonymous

Hello, necromancer66

Thank you for using the Answers Forum and for helping test Windows 7!

Try disabling the “Retrieve additional information from the internet” option. Open Windows Media Player, right click on the navigation arrows at the top, select Tools, Options, go to the Library tab and uncheck the “Retrieve additional information from the internet” option.

David

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

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Anonymous

I solved it this way:

1. Organize -> Manage Libraries -> Music / Videos / Pictures / Recorded TV

Here I removed everything so that Media Player monitores NO folders

EXCEPT my own Music folder where my mp3 collection is located.

2. Organize -> Options -> Library

Here I have everything DISABLED. Only "Maintain my star ratings as global ratings in files"

is ENABLED which is the best choice because if you make backups of your mp3s you

also don't lose your star ratings because they are stored directly in the mp3 files.

**3. Right-Click on the bar where the Prev/Next Arrows are -> Tools -> Advanced -> Restore media library...**Now the library is rebuild and when I close and open Media Player

again my mp3 collection is instantly shown without a full rescan.

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173 additional answers

Anonymous

2010-04-03T10:06:27+00:00

Why is wmp12 constantly updating the media library. Is there anyway to turn this off.It gets heavy on system resources and also slows down the player.does anybody have a solution?

no

Thank you for your very insightful response amjad. These are just the kinds of responses we need on this forum. /s

Regarding the constant update issue, I have a HTPC where the all of the media is actually located across network paths back to my desktop machine, and WMP seems to scan properly in that when I updated videos, it only updated what changed in videos and did not go through scanning all of my music again (I know because it takes hours across the network if it was to rescan everything). Oddly, I have not been able to make it behave properly like that on my desktop with local folders even with all the options in the Library tab in the options unchecked. One caveat though, there are times where I would add new music on my desktop and WMP on the HTPC would fail to see the update. So sometimes it's still uncertain whether it really is working correctly or not.

And a tip for those trying to set up an in-home media server, I found it much easier and more flexible to share the folders through Windows without using Homegroup (because then you can set user permissions and such for each one), add their network paths to the HTPC's Windows 7 Libraries (the OS ones, not WMP's library), and to have WMP on the HTPC use these network paths to build its library and play media from. Windows networking is robust enough to automatically stream almost anything across the network as needed, and this gives you greater control of what to share to who, as well as avoid the hit-and-miss WMP12 media streaming feature, in addition to not having to run an additional background service. However this only works for Windows-based HTPCs, and devices such as a PS3 will require the WMP12 media streaming feature.
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