38 replies to this topic

[Quboid]

I'm running Vista SP1. On boot-up, there is always a process running, wmplayer.exe. I can't find any service or start up program that has anything to do with Windows Media Player except some network thing (Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service Configuration Application), and stopping this service doesn't get rid of this particular process, just wmpnscfg.exe. It messes with my keyboard's media keys as pause/next/etc button signals go to this process instead of WinAMP. I can kill it in task manager and all's good in the world, but I have to do this on every boot.

I only use WMPlayer for video but I've found that I also have the issue where closing WMP doesn't stop music playing, I have to click the stop button first. By killing this rogue wmplayer.exe process, I don't get this issue any more.

[Long]

It's a bug with Windows Media Player 11 I believe, especially if you have the mini-player enabled. Sometimes when you click the "X" icon, it doesn't any stop the process but closes the application window. Music and videos will continue to play, but won't be displayed anywhere. Launching WMP shortcuts will do nothing. You'll have to manually close the wmplayer.exe process unfortunately.

[TogaForComfort]

Do you have folder monitoring on?
I had this issue and found it was constantly scanning my music folder.

Turning off monitoring fixed it for me, but it's a pain when you add new music to the folder.

[Quboid]

Folder monitoring? What's that? Is that a WMP feature?

Long - the problem is that this process happens from boot-up. That things keep playing is really minor as WMP is rarely used.

[Quboid]

OK I've found folder monitoring. Now how do I get rid of it?!

[darkmanx21]

I think you also need to remove Media Sharing from within Windows itself also. I think it can be reached by going into the Network and Sharing Center. Then you can go into the WMP player options and do what is needed.

...I'm not sure how to completely turn off Monitor Folders..I have it set to monitor a "fake" folder, one I just made up. You have to ignore the rest (manually I think).

Also..there is a Sharing section right above the Monitor Folders section..unchecking those boxes should also help. Just reboot to be safe although I'm sure it's not neccesary.

I've had this happen a few times, but never on startup..hmm..so that is something new. Mine seems to be running smooth actually.

Hope it was helpful.

[Quboid]

Media sharing was off on Network and Sharing. I've set my Music directory to be the empty default path but it's still searching the real music collection, D:\Music, rather than C:\Users\<Me>\Music <Update: never mind, I figured out what "Rip folder" meant, duuuuh>. I fixed the WinAMP media buttons by changing Logitech Setpoint's ini file so WinAMP is the first it looks for. Now I'm concerned about monitoring wasting system resources, it seems like a spectacularly stupid feature.

[Long]

Folder monitoring is only on when WMP is "on", it doesn't cause your WMP to load at boot if you don't want it to.

[Quboid]

Hmm, something is. It's sitting using 20MB of memory and if it's monitoring, it's monitoring one empty directory.

[soldier1st]

you need to disable the media player sharing service from starting with windows,msconfig is good for that.

[+Preppy]

I think there's a lot of confusion in this thread.

What's the command line that Windows Media Player is running with? "tlist.exe wmplayer.exe" would show you that if you had tlist. I'm sure other utilities would show that too.
What services are running at startup?

The Windows Media Player Sharing Service doesn't run wmplayer.exe. WMP is probably being invoked here by something remoting the player.

[HeyRatFans]

Had this problem myself recently after reinstalling Vista (to go from 32 to 64bit).

I only noticed when clicking the Windows Media Player icon in Quick Launch didn't do anything and opening Task Manager revealed the process sitting there doing nowt. Ended the task and launched WMP normally, agreed to the license agreement / ran the set up portion of it and then shut it down and everything is behaving as it should. No wmplayer.exe task and Media Sharing is working as expected with my Xbox360.

I don't know if it was the running it and going through the setup that made it work or something else. It could just have easily been my fiddling in the registry run keys, cleaning out the various run entries after the marathon that is re-installing all my applications, although I don't remember deleting any keys from there relating to Media Player it's certainly possible.

[Quboid]

I've done the license thing no problem. I've disabled WMP Sharing, although that's not the problem anyway. I don't have tlist, is tasklist the same thing?

[chAos972]

Long, on Feb 19 2008, 23:08, said:

It's a bug with Windows Media Player 11 I believe, especially if you have the mini-player enabled. Sometimes when you click the "X" icon, it doesn't any stop the process but closes the application window. Music and videos will continue to play, but won't be displayed anywhere. Launching WMP shortcuts will do nothing. You'll have to manually close the wmplayer.exe process unfortunately.

I'm more inclined to think that it's this bug. I've had it happen a few times ramdonly, but can't reproduce it.

[Quboid]

I've just rebooted and it's not running. I suspect it's not actually running on boot-up, but it is run by something that typically occurs soon after boot up. Or maybe I somehow fixed it, I don't know, so I'll keep an eye out for the process appearing.