Windows Media Player has become unbearable!

[kev0]

Windows Media Player and I have been fighting for some time now. It used over 50% of my cpu the minute I turn it on. Now it can't even play music! It randomly pauses and crashes often. It can't even play an audio book while minimized! Can I reinstall Windows Media Player? Would reinstalling Windows Media Player even help me? I solved the cpu usage problem once before on this forum. I had to disable some sharing program it was attached to. Now it is doing it again and its much worse, as far as I can tell, the sharing program is still disabled. Windows Media Center does the same with the cpu usage. Windows Media Center also hangs and crashes often when watching tv. I have stopped using Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player all together, except when trying to listen to audio books on Windows Media Player. I use VLC for videos and iTunes for music now, but VLC will not play multiple files at a time and I don't want any audio books on my iPod, so I don't add them to my iTunes library. I would ultimately like to fix Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player. I am very aggravated with them both, because they worked flawlessly with Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit and they hardly work with Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit on the same computer. This makes no since to me! Any Help is appreciated, and if you could suggest another media player to use instead of Windows Media Player for my audio books, that would be great. Thanks in advanced! -Kevin

 

[Tews]

While I dont have any problems with WMP, I dont use it... I have always used Winamp to play all of my music, movies and audio book files and have never had a problem... You might want to give it go..

 

[Dzomlija]

Windows Media Player and I have been fighting for some time now. It used over 50% of my cpu the minute I turn it on. Now it can't even play music! It randomly pauses and crashes often. It can't even play an audio book while minimized! Can I reinstall Windows Media Player? Would reinstalling Windows Media Player even help me? I solved the cpu usage problem once before on this forum. I had to disable some sharing program it was attached to. Now it is doing it again and its much worse, as far as I can tell, the sharing program is still disabled. Windows Media Center does the same with the cpu usage. Windows Media Center also hangs and crashes often when watching tv. I have stopped using Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player all together, except when trying to listen to audio books on Windows Media Player. I use VLC for videos and iTunes for music now, but VLC will not play multiple files at a time and I don't want any audio books on my iPod, so I don't add them to my iTunes library. I would ultimately like to fix Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player. I am very aggravated with them both, because they worked flawlessly with Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit and they hardly work with Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit on the same computer. This makes no since to me! Any Help is appreciated, and if you could suggest another media player to use instead of Windows Media Player for my audio books, that would be great. Thanks in advanced! -Kevin

What you might want to do is open Windows Media Player from the start menu, and then switch to the Library view if it start in the player view.

In the lower-right corner of the Windows Media Player Library, do you see a message in the lines of "Updating Library"? If you do, then I'd suggest you let it finish.

I also got random crashes and such with Windows MEdia Player and Windows Media Center, untill I gave it a chance to finish building it's library. I left it running overnight, because my library (videos and music), in in the region of about 80,000 media files...

 

[mhasanbulli]

I am quite a fan of WMP, and I do not have any problems with it right now. I hated that they removed finding album info manually in v.12, but it still works fine with me.

Dzomlija is right. I once had a similar problem as yours. You may try to reset the library and allow it to recreate the database. The library database may get corrupted sometimes hence no playback or extremely huge delays of reading the library.

You may also try to fix possible issues by following this article here http://www.sevenforums.com/music-pictures-video/49514-general-troubleshooting-fix-wmp-issues.html

 

[Shadowjk]

I find it OK I prefer the WMP From Vista than The one in Windows 7, I use Itunes instead but to play Video I use WMP

 

[gaz]

Wmp

Click start/control panel/programs/, then unders programs and features

goto the "turn Windows features on and off"

Under "Media Features" Untick your Wmp and reboot

Then repeat-Click start/control panel/programs/, then unders programs and features

goto the "turn Windows features on and off"

Now Under "Media Features" Tick Wmp and Reboot

This should add it back to programs and be restored to default.

This also works if you have tried changing colors or using 3rd party apps that go wrong!!!!!!!!

Always create Restore point 1st!!!!!!!

 

[Jacee]

There is a tool to 'repair' it Repair Windows Media Player using Fix WMP - Tech Salsa