Prevent Windows Media Player Album Art Download

Hi, 

Welcome to Microsoft Windows 7 Answers Forum!

You may try the steps as below and check if the issue gets fixed.

1. Open Windows Media Player 12
2. Click Organize, click Options and then click the Library tab
3. In the Automatic media information updates for files area, make sure that 'Retrieve additional information from the Internet' is not checked.
4. This should prevent Media Player from overwriting what you have added.

For more information :

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/3552ec2d-d510-49ec-985c-1fc04c3d6da6

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/GettingReadyforWindows7/thread/0b3e71b3-9b85-4d0a-987c-e7b52677840d/

Thanks and Regards:

Suresh Kumar- Microsoft Support.

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forumand let us know what you think.

Hi DigiNoise,

The registry edit *has* appeared to have worked, for me.

It will still create a (hidden) Folder & AlbumArtSmall file *IF* one doesn't exist in the directory already; but it doesn't seem to delete/update existing one's anymore.

NB: in my library, I have a copy of my HQ folder.jpg called COVER.jpg (which I started creating when WMP started deleting my HQ folder.jpg's) as well as MQ versions of the single covers related to the album - I haven't needed to delete any LQ folder.jpg's since I posted the above. 

Part of the problem previously for me was that WMP grabbed the first albumart tagged file and re-created the folder.jpg from it, which generally was a single cover for me, instead of the album cover.  This doesn't make WMP show the image tagged to the specific file either, just the 'folder.jpg' shows when playing in WMP.

Hope this helps someone! :)

******* now using 'Windows 7' (from Dec'09)

I have done some researching on this issue and found the following:

• this is a major issue for a few of us
• although it was identified in WMP11 (or earlier?) Microsoft opted not to provide a resolution in WMP12 release
• the suggested workarounds don't seem to work for everyone

Can someone create a patch (etc) that stops this action? I (Like many others) would love to use WMP but cannot accept the LQ JPG downgrade upon use.  It would probably be useful to also include the update to the WMP settings (uncheck the auto update etc) for those that may have missed a check box or two.

If anyone else is adversly affected by this issue please drop a note below (just say 'me too' if you want), to show that it's not just three people affected.

A potential resolution I read was this : : 

(quote to KOAWMFOT)

if you add the below values it appears that WMP will NOT generate or resize new folder.jpg OR AlbumArtSmall.jpg files. IF folder.jpg (or AlbumArtSmall) already exist(s), it does not resize it but mearly sets the HIDDEN and SYSTEM attributes. so if you have a folder.jpg and/or an albumartsmall.jpg file at 1500x1500, it will leave them alone (except for hiding them...).

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences]

"LargeAlbumArtSize"=dword:ffffffff

"SmallAlbumArtSize"=dword:ffffffff

On first read, I couldn't locate these in the registry, but then decided to 'give it a go' adding them - so I added to the correct path above (Edit / New / DWORD) and typed the strings (without the " ie the Value Name is LargeAlbumArt - then enter the value data as ffffffff (8x'f') which showed 0xffffffff (4294967295) on the right hand column).

I have attempted to play the album I was playing which aroused this issue for me again and after playing about 3 songs it hasn't updated yet.

• • I also have unticked all references to 'Update' 'Download' etc from the WMP options/preferences dialogues on all pages (except those that specifically mentioned what they download - like program updates).

[RANT] Hope this helps you programmers sort out a patch for the rest of us - End Users shouldn't have to be playing in the RegEdit to get the programs we've purchased to behave acceptably. [/RANT]

If the above solution is incorrect or will break other things can someone please be kind enough to tell me what I'm risking?

Suresh,

In my original post I stated that Retrieve Additional Information from the Internet is **disabled.**Thanks

Richard

Richard Green, MCSA Windows Server 2003