38 replies to this topic

[neo158]

I've had this process running when WMP has crashed on me and also lingering a few times without crashing.

[+zachdms]

This shouldn't be randomly happening. If the player is running, it should be being remoted by something else running on your system. The player pretty deliberately start at startup because that would be dumb.

[+Brandon Live]

My psychic debugging powers suggest:

A) Some other application (or gadget) is using the WMP APIs, and thus wmplayer.exe is started as it is the COM server for many of those.

or

B) Some plug-in in media player is causing it to hang around after being closed.

[FloatingFatMan]

I've been getting this happen for months. It got so irritating that I stopped using WMP altogether as the damned thing almost never closes properly when I tell it to.

Media sharing IS on, but as I use my 360 for viewing media on my HD, it needs to stay on. Pretty sure this isn't the cause though as the task isn't running when my 360 is streaming.

[+zachdms]

What's the command line it's being run with?

If it's remoted, it will show that in the command line.
What devices are attached to the system? In some cases devices can have an open handle to the player preventing shutdown. SP1 should improve this by dropping bad reference counts against the player.

[Quboid]

Ok, it's back. The system's been up a couple of hours. No media of any sort has been played, Firefox is pretty much the only app I've used apart from my background ones (MSN, Thunderbird, Trillian, WinAMP Agent, Daemon Tools, Logitech Setpoint, Sync Centre and Sidebar).

D:\>tasklist /V /FI "IMAGENAME eq wmplayer.exe"

Image Name	PID   Session Name   Session#	Mem Usage  Status		  User Name	   CPU  Time Window Title
wmplayer.exe  4884  Console			   1	 26,896 K  Running		 Nero\Rob	0:00:01  ms_sqlce_se_notify_wndproc

D:\>

Does that clarify anything? Nero/Rob is Computer/User names. SQLCE - that sounds to me like Structured Query Language Compact Edition, that isn't right is it? That only makes a tiny bit of sense in connection with Sync Centre and the Windows Mobile device that is sometimes attached. Maybe Sync Centre is running some DRM checking crap in case I'm trying to copy protected music to my PDA?

[Quboid]

Right, progress.

When I put my WM2003 PDA into it's cradle, wmplayer.exe starts. If it's in it's cradle on system boot, wmplayer.exe is running from the start. If I load up Windows Media Player 11, in the sync section my PDA is listed up to 3 times (once as the player, once as "Built in Storage" (it's flash space) and once as SD Card, which is plugged into the PDA). I guess Sync Center is loading WMP to sync playlists. Is there any way to tell it to sod off?!

[thE_qubE]

from what ive read and asked about (ive made the same topic a while back) no1 could find the answer..this thing happens every time you boot up and plug/unplug a usb device though..

if you figure this out please pm me
i'll keep you posted if i see anything

[+zachdms]

As far as I'm aware the Sync Manager simply uses the player for functionality here and thus remotes the player, as you're noticing. So far this is by design behavior as far as I'm aware. What's the specific concern here? That WinAMP isn't hooking WM_APPCOMMANDS events... ?

[nevets]

I've reinstalled Vista Business & Ultimate, RTM and with SP1 several times now (back and forth on my SSD and HD to see how much faster $400 bucks is worth ). In every instance, wmplayer.exe is invoked soon after going in to the desktop. This is without any extra software installed, and the only gadgets running are calendar, clock, weather and cpu meter. With Process Explorer v11.04, wmplayer.exe will show up as a red process, turning on and off constantly.

It starts right after a couple of reboots from a fresh install. (And WMP11 had NEVER been run). I open task manager right after the I see the desktop, and open the resource monitor right away (which ALWAYS takes like 10-15 sec to come on). There will be at least 4-5 wmplayer.exe processes running over the hard drives (yes.. not just the c: drive!), and randomly into my other drives and files. The average time these run is about ~45-90 secs. All this settles down after another half a dozen reboots or so after. Well, once you touch WMP11, all this starts again. Tweaking the options and such mentioned before will help, but doesn't stop the the wmplayer.exe from coming on randomly. (I thought it was Media Center, but it does the same thing in Business install.

Frustrated, I installed Business N RTM and Business N SP1, and guess what, my boot ups are faster, and opening the resource monitor right after desktop appears is instantaneous. My wireless initial network connection connects faster too!

FYI, the N editions works perfectly fine without the WMP api. The only thing I can't do is watch WMV.... AND sync with my treo!!! (WMDC will not install without WMP11... that BS... since not every cares to sync music to their device).

...so back to the "non-N" edition

If any of you want, I can do another reinstall and post pictures.

[+zachdms]

Aberrant behavior is interesting. This doesn't seem like aberrant behavior, but I don't know what in particular you're specifically concerned about. You can check the command line for the player to see what it was told to go do, but if WMDC is invoking the player, this is by design. Things are allowed to start the player. =\

[nevets]

zachdms, on Mar 5 2008, 14:27, said:

Aberrant behavior is interesting. This doesn't seem like aberrant behavior, but I don't know what in particular you're specifically concerned about. You can check the command line for the player to see what it was told to go do, but if WMDC is invoking the player, this is by design. Things are allowed to start the player. =\

WMDC had not been installed in any of the versions. WMP11 never run. MCE never run. Untouched reinstall (except for sidebar... having calendar,weather,clock,cpu meter)

My concerns, wmplayer.exe process take a very high priority in disk and processor. (hence the "freeze" effect)
ALSO, it's going through my files that are randomly on other partitions and drives.

Aberrant behavior might be questionable until one installs the N-editions (without WMP11) and everything runs fine without any wmplayer.exe processes running.

Well, I don't think I will try to hunt down this issue, but instead get away from it. If anybody knows how I can watch wmv/wmv HD without WMP11, I will be forever grateful!


I would just have gone back to XP, except there's some weird issue with my Sony VGC-VA10G and the MTRON SSD drive. Keeps making the drive "unformatted" after I install XP.

Off-Topic Rant: I have to hard reset my treo 700w every time I reinstall vista in order for the bluetooth sync to work! Will not see activesync service till after hard reset.

[+zachdms]

Sorry, I saw that reference towards the tail end of your post, and thought that was the reference you were making.

Your two options for *diagnosis* are to capture a DMP in the player of use (long way to do this) or to get the command line - presumably something is remoting the player here, whether or not you notice the functionality attempt. The command line or the DMP may potentially indicate what that is.

I'm running a variety of Vista systems and don't see this behavior.

[Neoprimal]

Quboid, on Feb 19 2008, 07:06, said:

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.

In addition to what others have said, you may want to try disabling it if you have any sideshow devices. I have a G15 keyboard which in Vista becomes sideshow capable. Some mid end Dell PCs also have that sideshow window and of course more high end laptops are being build with the new Vista sideshow window. For me, disabling the Windows Media Player plugin worked like a charm. Originally I had thought the issue was the codec pack I had installed, but since uninstalling didn't work I looked for other possible issues.

Folder Monitoring is not the issue, since that is handled AFTER wmplayer.exe has started.
Windows Media Sharing is also not the culprit, as that is not only handled by another exe file but also only seems to 'activate' after wmp has been started on the system.

I ruled out these 2 and so came up with outside plugins accessing the program ie: sidebar and sideshow and disabling the sideshow plugin seemed to fix my 'running in background' issue AS WELL AS wmplayer.exe starting right back without it's guy after I close it.

Good Luck and I hope this solution helps.

[hzhkx4]

FYI - I also had the same problem (wmplayer.exe always running, even if you kill the task it respawned). I tried turning of all the sharing, killing sync center, disabling monitoring in WMP, etc. None worked.

What DID work was removing the "Windows Media Player" SideShow gadget (ControlPanel > Side Show). At one point I turned this on, not really knowing what it's for. Anyhow, removing this did the trick. Now WMP isn't always running, and it closes correctly (the audio would still play on exit before).


Thanks!