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

2009-06-04T20:25:41+00:00

I too was having the same problem. Fortunately the first suggestion (turning off "Retrieve additional information from the internet") from David did the trick; however, it seems this is a valid option that would be useful to keep my library accurate, especially when adding new files to my collection.

I'm not quite sure why having this checked ends up lowering performance. It's true that - on my machine, with a 62 gig collection with 11,347 files - it takes only about three minutes to complete the task after starting up WMP. But it does in fact draw significant CPU effort to perform this task, and 720p video becomes choppy during playback. I have a rather speedy 2.8Ghz core 2 duo machine (w/4 gigs of ram running RC 64-bit), and it seems odd that it would impact in such a way. Considering the disk utilization, it appears it is re-reading every MP3 in my library - is this necessary? With the option not checked, it does not do that, so it must not be required for any other task involved in maintaining the accuracy of my local library. So if the library is known to be valid, why must the "internet check" then hit every file in my library? Could it not perform this function using the cached library and only update when differences are found?

A common use case will frequently involve opening WMP to play a video file - if that is choppy for the first few minutes, they will either opt for another player, or just be dissatisfied with WMP. It would seem either condition is undesirable for Microsoft, and hopefully something they will remedy in a subsequent update of WMP.

All that said, Windows 7 is fantastic and a very impressive operating system - great job.
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