Windows 7: Music getting duplicated or moved on its own.

Well what is happening is that I have a lot of my albums sorted out in separate folders in the Music folder, well either those songs in those albums get duplicated and are also out in the music folder rather than in there album folder... Or they get erased from the album folder and are moved to the Music folder. I had finally sorted everything nicely today and when I went to go put a new song in the music folder I noticed it happened again... Now I have to do everything all over again, but I am worried it will do the same thing. Is there some type of setting in my Windows Media Player that is doing this or is this a glitch?.. I am not sure what to do, I have never had this problem before. If anyone can help, it would be very appreciated Thanks.

I am suspecting this is the work of malware like a worm or trojan. Its duplicating your music files. I would first do a malware scan if I were you.

Of course there is

Start WMP
Go to Organize -> Options -> Library Tab

Uncheck the highlighted options:


Additionally, you can prevent WMP from changing your tags too by unchecking the option above the two highlighted options

So I did a scan on the computer and nothing came up, I have Shaw Secure(F-Secure) that is provided by my internet provider for free, it seems to work good, because it has saved me when I downloaded infected files by deleting them.

Now for settings in the WMP I don't have those two that Gornot said to have unchecked, so I am good. But I do have "Retrieve additional information from the internet" checked, would that have anything to do with the problem.

I have a feeling that it has something to do with the music folder, so what i did is made a separate folder in "My Documents" and moved all my music to that folder, I hope it fixes the problem.

Now there is also another thing that is bugging me, there is little lock signs on the folders of my albums, I have no idea how to get rid of them. I have never seen them before, and they seem to be empty when I go into them, but even after I put the music in there, they still show the little locks. I have a image showing what I am talking about.

Hi there
Sometimes the tagging info can get screwed up so perhaps the Album name is missing from some tracks or the track numbers have got "out of sequence".

I'd check using mp3tag program -- very good for fixing this type of stuff

Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v2, MP4, OGG, FLAC, ...)

For example I downloaded an old BBC Audio production of Dan Dare - popular science fiction around 45 years old but still a great story today.

This was screwed up and missing the Album name so it was all out of sequence in my music library but easily fixed



Cheers
jimbo

I have been using Stamp ID3 Tag Editor for a while now, but I never use to happen to me before?

EDIT: Well So far making a new folder for my music in a different location on the computer worked and I figured out the whole locks on the folder... It has to do with the sharing options, I guess if you share your stuff over your network like I do, you have the option when you right click on a file and click "Share with" you can choose nobody, which puts those little locks on the folders or you can choose "read only" or "read/write". Though I would say if anyone else is wondering about that.

Yes, you are completely right about network sharing...
As far as downloading metadata from the internet option, that shouldn't have anything to do with actually moving and/or renaming files that are included in your libraries unless you have the two options I highlighted checked. So right now I can't think of anything that could reproduce your problem and test it...

Moving your music folder(s) was a good idea, and I would suggest that you reorganize your files once more than, instead of moving them back, copy them and see how it goes. Remember to clear your WMP library before doing this, otherwise the library would get corrupted and you would have to rebuild it again (there is a tutorial I wrote here on SF which explains how to do this), furthermore, if you added these music folders to WMP after moving them, expect duplicates to show if you decide to go ahead and copy some stuff back for the test.