wmplayer.exe running in background

[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 Veteran]

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?

[Argi]

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.

[neo158]

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

[Preppy Veteran]

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 Veteran]

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.

[Preppy Veteran]

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

[Preppy Veteran]

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 :D). 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 :pinch:

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