Unwanted Windows Media Player

[John WILD]

Whatever program I have running ( eg desktop, MS Word, Outlook
Express,Excel, ACDC etc etc ) suddenly without warning Widows Media Player
starts up and fully covers the screen. I close it down but within (in the
worst case) 5 secs it starts up again. I've tried just about everything ..
no lasting effect. I've even removed Windows Media Player ( via the Control
Panel) but to my surprise NeroMediaPlayer started up taking the place of WMP
!!!! I changed the name of the neromediaplayer.exe to xneromediaplayer.exe
which provided some relief but without Windows Media Player for some
applications I'll probably go out of my mind!!!! I reinstalled WMP and
the original problam restarted. You have no idea how difficult it has been
producing this email. I've ran ZONEALARM virus checker, physically
disconnected the internet cable all to no avail.
Anybody got any ideas ? Pleeese

John D. W

 

[Swifty]

Whatever program I have running ( eg desktop, MS Word, Outlook
Express,Excel, ACDC etc etc ) suddenly without warning Widows Media Player
starts up and fully covers the screen.

Something must be attempting to launch a media file, perhaps an MP3
file. This is why Nero took over when you removed WMP. It's unlikely to
be a benign process though.

I can think of some high-powered ways of finding out what is causing
this, but nothing simple or non-intrusive,

 

[John WILD]

Thanks Swifty
Here's a bit more. With WMP installed I did a search for wmplayer.exe and
found it in a number of folders. The one that is causing the problem is in
C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player Using "properties" I determined that
here the file version was 10.0.0.3646. Using Windows Explorer I deleted
this file but to my surprise after about 10 seconds it suddenly reappeared!
I could only find another wmplayer.exe with that file version and that was
in C:|windows\registered Packages\{DD90....ETC...}. This I renamed to
xwmplayer.exe and then I went back to C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player
and deleted wmplayer.exe again. Guess what after 10 secs it reappeared
again !!!! Disconnecting the internet cable and repeating the process may
no difference it kept reappearing. Where could it have come from ?
Any suggestions ( high powered or not) would be helpful. I'm about to try
removing all mp3 files and see what happens
Cheers
John W.

 

[Swifty]

Using Windows Explorer I deleted this file but to my surprise after
about 10 seconds it suddenly reappeared!
...
Any suggestions ( high powered or not) would be helpful. I'm about to
try removing all mp3 files and see what happens

Files like that which come back by themselves are probably being
monitored by the Windows mechanism that repairs damage to critical
components. I don't know where it keeps the backup files. But you
probably don't want to remove the media player, just stop whatever it is
that is causing it to launch. It can be quite handy. I use it all the
time to play my favourite music.

One thing you could try, if you're willing. You could change the
association of media files (such as MP3) to something that would tell
you which file was being referenced; I'd use notepad.exe
Once you'd changed the associations, instead of Media Player opening,
you'd get a Notepad session, and from that you could see what file had
caused it to launch. Finding out the file might be half of the battle.

Of course, it might not be an MP3 file, it might be a WMA, or a WAV. It
might take some time before you caught it in the act. You should keep
track of which associations you change, so you can put them back when
you've finished.