Prevent Windows Media Player Album Art Download

Anonymous
2009-12-02T13:24:14+00:00

I have spent a large amount of time fixingand manually editing my music album art with 500x500px images.

I have read the article at http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7music/thread/6ff8c9fd-d97f-4304-bad5-693f7dbb4532/ however this isn't my problem - I can add the artwork as I need.

The problem I have is that Windows Media Player is going online and replacing my 500x500px artwork with the 200x200px artwork from the online database. In addition to this, it is creating all of the 75x75px Small artwork files which are cluttering the My Music folder.

I have set Retrieve Additional Information from the Internet to No, and I have set Update Music Files by Retrieving Media Info from the Internet to No also, however it still goes online.

I used Wireshark to determine it is going to the following addresses:

redir.metaservices.windowsmedia.com.akadns.net

serviceswitching.metadata.windowsmedia.com.akadns.net

I have blocked these addresses on my router but WMP is finding a way around. I looked in the registry and there is nothing regarding totally disabling the artwork download (although this should be disabled with the options already set).

I can set the Folder.jpg files as Read-Only and this prevents WMP from overwriting my 500x500px files, but I still don't want it creating the AlbumArtSmall files.

Richard Green, MCSA Windows Server 2003

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2011-11-02T20:30:33+00:00

easy... just totally block windows media player using your firewall... or add those address as 127.0.0.1 (redir.metaservices.windowsmedia.com.akadns.net; serviceswitching.metadata.windowsmedia.com.akadns.net)

in the HOSTS file.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-08-04T14:14:52+00:00

    I'm having this same issue.

    Even tried blocking WMP from windows firewall but somehow its still updating with album art.

    I don't want ANY album art at all as i'm using sugar sync and it's going ahead and backing up all the hidden albumart files also which is a real pain.

    I give up, will try out winamp again, havnt used that player in about 10 years.

    Has anyone ever figured out the definitive set of fixes for this? I use WMP simply because I play music via my XBox 360 extender. However, I don't want WMP to actually touch the music at all (for organising the music, I use MediaMonkey), Yet even with the aforementioned URLs blocked(*), it will still download album art.

    P.

    (*) 127.0.0.1     redir.metaservices.windowsmedia.com.akadns.net

    127.0.0.1    serviceswitching.metadata.windowsmedia.com.akadns.net

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-01-29T01:06:41+00:00

    Tim - All of my folders have art that I have added but I name the art the same as my folder, example I have a folder for the album named 101 Strings-Lost Horizon for the album I have either a JPG or PNG file with the same name. WMP does not use the file unless I rename it to Folder.jpg. I could name it as such but I'm being ****. I may rename all of the art but with almost 3000 albums this is a lot of work, however I have not been pleased with the WMP replacements I've tested so far.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-01-28T20:33:53+00:00

    jgt: the registry tweak that you applied prevents WMP from automatically downloading and creating any more of those album art JPGs. So if you still want album art, you'll have to manually add them, or use a third-party tool for automatic lookups.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-01-27T09:42:26+00:00
    1. The image files are not hidden
    2. I found new image for one of the albums saved it as Herb Alpert-AM Gold Series.png - still could not see it.
    3. Open the PNG in an editor and saved it as Herb Alpert-AM Gold Series.jpg - still could not see it
    4. Renamed it to Folder.jpg - now I see the image.
    5. Went to another album where I cannot see the cover, it has a jpg (not hidden) created a scond copy and renamed it to Folder.jpg - I cannot see the album cover.
    6. Repeated steps 2-4 now I see the cover however I had to changed the view from album to artist and back to album.
    7. Went to thrid album, copied exesting jpg image and renamed it to Folder.jpg - could not see the cover, changed the view from album to artist and back to album still cannot see the cover.

    It seems that I have to get a new image file and name it to Folder.jpg

    1. I'm not excited about finding a new image file for each album that has this issue, a rough guess suggest that about 22% of the albums have this issue and I have about 2800 albums
    2. I really don't like naming the image to Folder.jpg I would much prefer naming the image "U2-Seven.jpg" to identify the artist and album

    As a test I looked at the folders where I do see the album art and in a lot of the folders I do have the AlbumArt and Folder.jpg files and they are hidden. I was very surprised to see this and that my search tool "Everything" did not find them. BTW I turn on the settings so I see all hidden files.

    At this point I'm confused and I'm going to look for another player.

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