Windows Media Player 11 Album Art Hell

[ProclaimDragon]

I'm using WMP 11 on Windows Vista and I'm having this problem with Album Art that is driving me insane... I've already searched a lot and couldn't find anything that could help me out.

I have all my album art embedded in the mp3 files, in the ID3 tags. This tag art is read just fine by WMP, Media Center and the Explorer, all of them get the album art from the file. However, every time I open up WMP, it starts creating those annoying Folder.jpg and AlbumArtSmall.jpg files inside each album folders and I really don't want that. First, cause it's resized to 200x200 and that sucks displaying in the Media Center for instance, mines are at 500x500. Second, cause I have a "Various" folder which has lots of different songs from different albums and artists, a folder with mixed content and if I have a those stupid WMP tiny art files there, then, in the WMP Library, all files that are inside that folder will have that stupid cover and not the embedded one.

How can I prevent this album art from ever being created by Windows Media Player.

I though of a solution, but I don't believe it's possible. For instance, to have Media Player, to always be executed and run with the permissions from a different user. Then, I would disallow write access to the whole Music folder. I can't use my account for that cause I need write access. WMP needed to run from a different user account, and this needed to happen from wherever I launch WMP, either shortcuts or directly through the exe. Is this even possible somehow?

I forgot to tell you one important thing... Yes, I have all those checks about "retrieve additional information from the internet" and things like that unticked... I believe there's only 2 in the Media Player options and they are both unticket. I don't understand why WMP keeps creating those art files...

Edited April 6, 2007 by Nazgulled

[sy64]

Did you untick the "update music files" option in the privacy tab as well?

[ProclaimDragon]

Did you untick the "update music files" option in the privacy tab as well?

When you tick/untick the one on the Library that one also gets ticket or unticked and the vice versa.

[Zionyx]

surely someone has a response... I have the same problem (except my gripe is WMP overwriting the 500x500 folder.jpg that I've made)

[Xiphan]

I have this exact same problem! :( I'm thinking of ditching media player altogether! But what other alternatives are there that support album art? :huh:

[FiB3R]

The latest version of winamp supports album art

[takkun]

ok here's what i did- same thing happened to me-

first with wmp closed go to the album folder then using folder options select 'show hidden files' and untick 'hide protected operating system files' then you will be able to see the corrupted album art, which you should remove at this point, i suggest you remove everything including the folder.jpg, then this step depends on how many files you have but i removed the write protection off the files and then the embedded album art from the .mp3's one by one, using wmp's 'advanced tag editor' can be done with any other id3tag app tho, then write protect them back. At this point you can go ahead and place your own album art in each album folder.

now i don't know if there's a way to stop windows from recreating those files but i'm gonna assume that there's not, because it needs it to display the album art, but also i know that wmp only does that when you retrieve the album art from the internets, not when you place your own folder.jpg on your folders. What i mean is that when wmp finds the album info but not the album art, [which only happens with obscure/foreign music] you can place you own folder.jpg and whatever size you want it, you'll be safe as long as wmp doesn't write the covers to the file, like when you drag a pic onto the album art placeholder in wmp.

Edited January 6, 2008 by takkun

[funkymunky]

I know you probably just want to know how to fix it in WMP.

But

I've had this problem for a while and last week switched to Winamp.

It is brilliant and now the problem is solved for me :)

[b4andafter5]

Sorry for floating an incredibly old thread... but after finding this in google I felt that I should reply to it.

It seems as though I have fixed this problem on my Vista machine by changing the permissions on my "Music" folder.

The process went as follows: right-click "music">>properties>>Security>>Edit. Highlight "SYSTEM" and on the list below, check "Deny" across from (for) "Write." Then click apply and ok for any messages that pop up.

So far this appears to work perfectly. You're welcome :)

Edit: This appears to be just stop the album art files from spawning while playing music. Manually editing the library appears to mess things up again. You might be able to stop that too by blocking yourself (and admins?) from write permission, but I don't know, I haven't tried. Good Luck.

Edited January 20, 2009 by b4andafter5

[phot0nic]

Edit: This appears to be just stop the album art files from spawning while playing music. Manually editing the library appears to mess things up again. You might be able to stop that too by blocking yourself (and admins?) from write permission, but I don't know, I haven't tried. Good Luck.

What specifically happens when you edit the library? If I do this, can I still add music files to the music folder? If so, will they appear in the Library? Also, can I edit the ID3 tag info of my files? This problem has been bothering me for a while. I posted about this and another problem with WMP that are absolute show-stoppers for me a little while ago, but got no responses.

---

I think my biggest problem is that some real-life human being had to make a conscious decision to program WMP to behave like this. How could that person (or anyone else on the team, for that matter) not stop and think "hey, this is pretty stupid"?

My other complaint is that "Play All" is the default double-click action, rather than "Play". Once again, how could someone possibly not see how stupid that is?

Oh well, these problems still exist in WMP 12. Maybe version 13 will finally be usable.

[b4andafter5]

It look as though adding music to the folders or editing the tags does not affect it... when I did my fix, album art would respawn only when I removed files from the library. I think that items added automatically don't add the crap... I haven't thoroughly tested it, as you can see :p

[grellanl]

Thought I'd post this on here, as this is a very annoying issue and nobody seems to have posted a better solution.

If you have the correct album art in place, all saved as proper 500x500 images or whatever, and WMP keeps replacing these with those terrible 200x200 or 200x179 images, you can do the following:

1. ensure WMP is closed fully

2. add your folder.jpg files in the appropriate directories

3. run the following command at the root of your music directory

E:\Music> forfiles /S /M folder.jpg /C "cmd /c echo @file && attrib +r +s +h @file"

That will basically run through the whole music directory and hide and write-protect the folder images. Basically, when WMP loads that directory and tries to add its nasty low-res images to your music folder, it finds the folder.jpg is read-only, fails, and then doesn't bother creating the albumart*.jpg files either.

On a related note, the correct place for these images is in the ID3 tags embedded in the music itself; the excellent mp3tag is a great way to manage this.

[pasty2k2]

Thought I'd post this on here, as this is a very annoying issue and nobody seems to have posted a better solution.

If you have the correct album art in place, all saved as proper 500x500 images or whatever, and WMP keeps replacing these with those terrible 200x200 or 200x179 images, you can do the following:

1. ensure WMP is closed fully

2. add your folder.jpg files in the appropriate directories

3. run the following command at the root of your music directory

E:\Music> forfiles /S /M folder.jpg /C "cmd /c echo @file && attrib +r +s +h @file"

That will basically run through the whole music directory and hide and write-protect the folder images. Basically, when WMP loads that directory and tries to add its nasty low-res images to your music folder, it finds the folder.jpg is read-only, fails, and then doesn't bother creating the albumart*.jpg files either.

On a related note, the correct place for these images is in the ID3 tags embedded in the music itself; the excellent mp3tag is a great way to manage this.

Old thread is old, but good post is good! Reppy up! +

[Alniter]

3. run the following command at the root of your music directory

E:\Music> forfiles /S /M folder.jpg /C "cmd /c echo @file && attrib +r +s +h @file"

That will basically run through the whole music directory and hide and write-protect the folder images. Basically, when WMP loads that directory and tries to add its nasty low-res images to your music folder, it finds the folder.jpg is read-only, fails, and then doesn't bother creating the albumart*.jpg files either.

Not sure how to run a command at the root. Help a layman out.

[Preppy Veteran]

Not sure how to run a command at the root. Help a layman out.

The instructions are kinda broken. Folder.jpg and AlbumArtSmall.jpg are completely reserved filenames for WMP. You cannot safely nor sanely use those filenames for your own purposes. They will be overwritten. By default WMP creates those files system hidden, which was the initial clue long ago to not touch those files. Don't touch them: those are reserved filenames.

This:

* https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/767036-wmp12-win7-7100-stop-wmp12-from-touching-folderjpg-files/page__st__60__p__591704002#entry591704002

is probably way way more interesting to you.

Again, those two filenames in particular are absolutely reserved filenames by WMP that there is no method whatsoever of overwriting WMP's perceived "ownership" of those two files. Those files get created when anything using the album art system asks for album art for the files in question. If both folder.jpg and albumartsmall.jpg already exist, they *usually* won't be recreated. But if they're not around and the album art system is asked for those images, they'll be recreated if possible. =\

[Semental]

Funny thing, I was about to post a request about this very topic, but it appears I have been beat to the punch. On several places on the internet I have found a response to this question, but it requires modifying the registry. I am slightly retarded when it comes to messing with the registry. Is it possible that someone can interpret the following modification and turn it into an executable registry script so that making the change is fool proof? It is supposed to prevent WMP from creating any folder.jpg or albumart.jpg files.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences]

"LargeAlbumArtSize"=dword:ffffffff

"SmallAlbumArtSize"=dword:ffffffff

Again, when it comes to the registry, I am slightly retarded, so your help is much appreciated.

[Preppy Veteran]

Funny thing, I was about to post a request about this very topic, but it appears I have been beat to the punch. On several places on the internet I have found a response to this question, but it requires modifying the registry. I am slightly retarded when it comes to messing with the registry. Is it possible that someone can interpret the following modification and turn it into an executable registry script so that making the change is fool proof? It is supposed to prevent WMP from creating any folder.jpg or albumart.jpg files.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences]

"LargeAlbumArtSize"=dword:ffffffff

"SmallAlbumArtSize"=dword:ffffffff

Again, when it comes to the registry, I am slightly retarded, so your help is much appreciated.

No, that only affects the maximum dimensions of the files.

You cannot prevent WMP from creating any folder.jpg or albumartsmall.jpg files unless you hack your folder permissions or other such nonsense. If you don't like WMP's album art behavior, I would suggest not using it nor Media Center (which uses the same logic in part).