Media Player sticks in memory

D

Doit2it

Vista on a new system (no upgrade). Sometimes Windows Media Player will
stay in memory (task manager) after I have closed it. Occasionally a MP3
will continue to play after MP has been closed. I have to reopen, hit stop,
and close to get sound to stop. Wmplayer.exe will continue to grow in size
(memory leak) if the task isn't ended in task manager. Any suggestions?
 
C

Canuck57

Rick Rogers said:
Hi,


Yes, remember to stop the music file before closing. Seriously though,
this is a bug with some sound cards, and currently this is the only
resolution.
Click to expand...

You are kidding right?

If a user needs to close the file stream before closing, gray out or prompt
the user to close it. It is sure not a freaking "bug with some sound
cards".

Looks like I too have this stupid issue and more. Booted 3 days ago, 22%
used with only mail open. Today with only mail open, 28%. Mind you, got 2%
back from clicking on a optimize thingy. Going to see how far this grows,
8GB installed BTW.
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
Click to expand...
 
B

Bob Campbell

Canuck57 said:
Looks like I too have this stupid issue and more. Booted 3 days ago, 22%
used with only mail open. Today with only mail open, 28%. Mind you, got
2% back from clicking on a optimize thingy. Going to see how far this
grows, 8GB installed BTW.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about 22% RAM used? If you are lucky it will use ALL your
RAM. It's supposed to do that. I have 4GB RAM and 0 free on Ultimate 64,
running a couple instances of IE, one each of Safari, XChat, Itunes and
Windows Mail.

Love that Vista RAM cache! Unused RAM is wasted RAM! Everything is fast
as hell - no grinding of the disk!
 
C

Cameron Snyder

Canuck57 said:
You are kidding right?

If a user needs to close the file stream before closing, gray out or
prompt the user to close it. It is sure not a freaking "bug with some
sound cards".

Looks like I too have this stupid issue and more. Booted 3 days ago, 22%
used with only mail open. Today with only mail open, 28%. Mind you, got
2% back from clicking on a optimize thingy. Going to see how far this
grows, 8GB installed BTW.
Click to expand...

And if you sit there and watch it for another 24 hours it may release memory
back to 25%. This is the A.I. of Vista's memory management at work.
Prefetch. If it's already in memory it doesn't need to be loaded again. Give
'em a memory meter and they go all OCD on you.

If you have media sharing enabled Media Player will always be resident and
using resources. Don't sweat it. Go out and play.
 
B

Bob Campbell

Alias said:
It's a whole lot better than not enough RAM ;-)
Click to expand...

Unused RAM and not enough RAM result in the same thing - poor performance.
I like that Vista caches everything. RAM is cheap, it should be used.
 
C

Canuck57

Bob Campbell said:
Are you talking about 22% RAM used? If you are lucky it will use ALL
your RAM. It's supposed to do that. I have 4GB RAM and 0 free on
Ultimate 64, running a couple instances of IE, one each of Safari, XChat,
Itunes and Windows Mail.

Love that Vista RAM cache! Unused RAM is wasted RAM! Everything is
fast as hell - no grinding of the disk!
Click to expand...

I uninstalled every piece of infestation included with the OEMs load. Even
removed Norton. Removed all the try/buy stuff too. First thing I did in
fact. 8GB and 22% used on fresh boot. Yep, that is what the CPU usage
gadget says. Wish I could have gotten it lower.

Fire up the VM, it goes up pretty quick. Say 2 Solaris and a couple of
Linux.... debating to stoop and feed M$ for XP though. My wife is hating
Vista, almost to a point where I don't dare take XP away. Damn, I want that
older AMD X2 for Solaris and Linux, slap bang... getting too old to fight.

Do notice on big disk copies, unlike Linux/UNIX, Vista does not use the RAM
to help out and takes forever. Probably a NTFS limitation. Also notice it
with secure shell copy, must slower than the 2 year older AMD X2 3800. Runs
FC 8 light lighting though.

Can't find anyone selling XP Pro x86.... might be the best of both worlds if
I can get a legal copy.
 
C

Canuck57

Bob Campbell said:
Unused RAM and not enough RAM result in the same thing - poor performance.
I like that Vista caches everything. RAM is cheap, it should be used.
Click to expand...

Huh?

If this were a xNIX system I would agree. But copying some 60 Gigs between
drives, memory hardly flinched with Vista. On something like Solaris I
would see the disk cached memory saturate an it would have took less than
1/2 the time. I would turn on the Vista caching but NTFS as I understand it
isn't journal logged disk like Solaris so if the power goes out...you could
be in a whole world of hurt on recovery. Plus, it isn't the default in
Vista like it is in Solaris. Linux has similar.

Vista should not care if you have too much RAM, Solaris and Linux do not.
But it could be used like Linux and Solaris in making big disk copies
faster.

But RAM is cheap, 8GB in 4 x 2GB was only $180 - no reason to run short in
any OS.
 
C

Canuck57

Cameron Snyder said:
And if you sit there and watch it for another 24 hours it may release
memory back to 25%. This is the A.I. of Vista's memory management at work.
Prefetch. If it's already in memory it doesn't need to be loaded again.
Give 'em a memory meter and they go all OCD on you.

If you have media sharing enabled Media Player will always be resident and
using resources. Don't sweat it. Go out and play.
Click to expand...

Going to see. Play I will. Will let this run without reboot and see. If
"AI" (artificial intelligence) is at work, it should top out and stay
stable. Time will tell.
 
R

Rick Rogers

You are kidding right?

Wish I was, but I'm just stating that this is a known issue. I'm not
defending it, I happen to be a victim myself, which is partly why I'm aware
of it. It happens with some, but not all, sound cards. I've bugged it,
there's been no resolution as yet that I'm aware of.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

Canuck57 said:
Rick Rogers said:
Hi,


Yes, remember to stop the music file before closing. Seriously though,
this is a bug with some sound cards, and currently this is the only
resolution.
Click to expand...

You are kidding right?

If a user needs to close the file stream before closing, gray out or
prompt the user to close it. It is sure not a freaking "bug with some
sound cards".

Looks like I too have this stupid issue and more. Booted 3 days ago, 22%
used with only mail open. Today with only mail open, 28%. Mind you, got
2% back from clicking on a optimize thingy. Going to see how far this
grows, 8GB installed BTW.
Click to expand...
 
Z

zachd [MSFT]

In some cases an external service or application will leave an open
reference count on the player, which prevents the player from shutting down.
Service Pack 1 has logic to better determine when those bogus reference
counts are open and handling them appropriately. If you're still having
this problem with Service Pack 1, I'd be interested in acquiring a DMP file
of a machine in that state.

Thanks,
-Zach
 

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