wmplayer dies not unload

  • Thread starter Thread starter keepout
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keepout

Just about every time I pull up the task manager, wmplayer is loaded. I found
out about this after I exited it, lost the player, and picture, but the sound
was still playing along. Until I found it was in the task manager, I had no way
to turn that off.

How do I get wmplayer to quit when I tell it to ?
 
Sorry for another post, but:

if that doesn't work, I'd go hunting for why or what starts the WMP process
(I presume it starts at boot time - which is unnecessary, I believe).

You can use MSconfig or Sysinternals' program called "Autoruns". If it
isn't started at boot time, you can still figure out what starts it using
"Process Explorer", again from Systinternals (www.sysinternals.com) This
and Process Monitor are very good "hunting" programs. Good luck...

-me.
Let this forum know if this helps or if you figure out the problem, so
others can benefit. As far as I know the "notify me of replies"
does not work, so do not count on this feature.
 
What devices are attached to the system?
Is Media Center running? What applications are running when this happens?
Can you check what command line the player is running with? I believe the
SysInternal's "Process Monitor" tool should show you that.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--

Just about every time I pull up the task manager, wmplayer is loaded. I
found
out about this after I exited it, lost the player, and picture, but the
sound
was still playing along. Until I found it was in the task manager, I had no
way
to turn that off.

How do I get wmplayer to quit when I tell it to ?
 
On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:58:36 -0800, "zachd [MSFT]"
What devices are attached to the system?
Is Media Center running? What applications are running when this happens?
Can you check what command line the player is running with? I believe the
SysInternal's "Process Monitor" tool should show you that.
Click to expand...

It's a common problem, and re-installing vista or WMP IS the only solution, but
there's no way to re-install WMP since it's part of the Vista installation.

It's more or less a 3rd party program. I have many others that can play the
files it plays. It's just simpler to use WMP in most cases. It grabs relevant
codec's in 80% of the files. Without it I have to google to find a working
codec.
 
How would reinstalling WMP fix this problem? Could you be specific in what
element you think needs to be reset?

If I'm right and there's an extant reference count on the player from some
other element/application, wouldn't reinstalling the operating system be
doomed to failure since later on you would again have that same rogue
element again holding a reference count to the player and again preventing
WMP from unloading?

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--
On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:58:36 -0800, "zachd [MSFT]"
What devices are attached to the system?
Is Media Center running? What applications are running when this happens?
Can you check what command line the player is running with? I believe the
SysInternal's "Process Monitor" tool should show you that.
Click to expand...

It's a common problem, and re-installing vista or WMP IS the only solution,
but
there's no way to re-install WMP since it's part of the Vista installation.

It's more or less a 3rd party program. I have many others that can play the
files it plays. It's just simpler to use WMP in most cases. It grabs
relevant
codec's in 80% of the files. Without it I have to google to find a working
codec.
 
How would reinstalling WMP fix this problem? Could you be specific in what
element you think needs to be reset?

If I'm right and there's an extant reference count on the player from some
other element/application, wouldn't reinstalling the operating system be
doomed to failure since later on you would again have that same rogue
element again holding a reference count to the player and again preventing
WMP from unloading?
Click to expand...

It's a recent problem. I disagree with the fix to re-install Vista. But Ido
agree with the possible causes of adding 3rd party codec's outside of WMP. WMP
is not a be-all end-all application. It won't play some files no matter what
you do. In that case you need another player, and most likely different
codec's. I presume this is what happened when I ran across some MKV file a week
or 2 back. I use Vdub, that's supposed to handle MKV fine. But it couldn't.
went to the MKV site. or rather www.filext.org to find out what to use with it.
It's an ancient file type. The links at filext were dead, but not the ones at
sourceforge. I found a player, but no editor or converter. So, it was more
trouble than it was worth, so I don't use MKV files any more, but I suspect the
damage was done.
For all I know it could have been any of 1000 other causes that screwedup WMP.
And still I'm not alone with this problem, and there is no fix at the message
boards.
The problem didn't always exist.
 
I don't think that would be accurate, since any random codec typically
should not be invoked unless it's actually going to be decoding some file
for you. It shouldn't be able to randomly cause WMP to fail to shut down.
Corrupt memory and crash and actually shut WMP down, sure, that definitely
seems to be a popular option with random codecs, but it's also pretty easy
to identify 3rd party codecs installed within WMP. WMP's
Help:About:Technical Support Information menu tool, for example, is a pretty
good way to get most of that data set.

You can add most any file type support to WMP through its DirectShow
extensibility.
The link at fileext took me to CCCP, which pointed me to matroska.org, which
seemed to have a guide on how to get those files to play back in WMP.
Yes, I agree that we've generally become irresponsible about providing
random file types using random codecs and expecting that the user will know
how to play them. Content providers used to tell people how to play back
the random file types they supplied. =\

I'm pretty sure this is an *external* reference count where the player is
remoted, a reference count is added, and the application holding the
reference count isn't releasing it. Hence my question about external
connected devices.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--

How would reinstalling WMP fix this problem? Could you be specific in what
element you think needs to be reset?

If I'm right and there's an extant reference count on the player from some
other element/application, wouldn't reinstalling the operating system be
doomed to failure since later on you would again have that same rogue
element again holding a reference count to the player and again preventing
WMP from unloading?
Click to expand...

It's a recent problem. I disagree with the fix to re-install Vista. But I do
agree with the possible causes of adding 3rd party codec's outside of WMP.
WMP
is not a be-all end-all application. It won't play some files no matter what
you do. In that case you need another player, and most likely different
codec's. I presume this is what happened when I ran across some MKV file a
week
or 2 back. I use Vdub, that's supposed to handle MKV fine. But it couldn't.
went to the MKV site. or rather www.filext.org to find out what to use with
it.
It's an ancient file type. The links at filext were dead, but not the ones
at
sourceforge. I found a player, but no editor or converter. So, it was more
trouble than it was worth, so I don't use MKV files any more, but I suspect
the
damage was done.
For all I know it could have been any of 1000 other causes that screwed up
WMP.
And still I'm not alone with this problem, and there is no fix at the
message
boards.
The problem didn't always exist.
 
I'm pretty sure this is an *external* reference count where the player is
remoted, a reference count is added, and the application holding the
reference count isn't releasing it. Hence my question about external
connected devices.
Click to expand...

I was going to say 'And I repeat' but it's still quoted below.
It's a RECENT problem. But not just with me. Many identical messages explaining
this exact problem.
I'm not sure if I fixed the problem or not since it's not a guarantee with my
files. But there was something WMP in the registry HKC?/RUN section.
I don't use WMP Media section that's totally buggy. Took weeks to find all the
crap causing it to reload all the time.
I'll know in a day or two if the problems fixed or like a Trojan just waiting
for the right phase of the moon to resurrect.
 
Interesting, I would love to know what the delta is here that is causing
this.

There's no supported entries in the "Run" section that I'm aware of for WMP,
so I'd love to know further about what the specifics of that entry was/were.
Generally anything touching upon that angle of system interaction would have
gone past my eyes at some point, and since I haven't heard of that, that
sounds like something rogue on your system was trying to get cute. The only
previous time in the history of Windows Media that WMP was in the Run key
was when a trojan variant was putting "wmplayer.exe" there as an attempt to
run a malicious binary that wasn't actually WMP. (If I recall correctly,
System File Protection generally defanged that threat, but the machine still
needed to be cleaned from the trojan infestation.)

I would love to know what that specific registry entry and value were.
Thanks for the info.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--
I'm pretty sure this is an *external* reference count where the player is
remoted, a reference count is added, and the application holding the
reference count isn't releasing it. Hence my question about external
connected devices.
Click to expand...

I was going to say 'And I repeat' but it's still quoted below.
It's a RECENT problem. But not just with me. Many identical messages
explaining
this exact problem.
I'm not sure if I fixed the problem or not since it's not a guarantee with
my
files. But there was something WMP in the registry HKC?/RUN section.
I don't use WMP Media section that's totally buggy. Took weeks to find all
the
crap causing it to reload all the time.
I'll know in a day or two if the problems fixed or like a Trojan just
waiting
for the right phase of the moon to resurrect.
 
There's no supported entries in the "Run" section that I'm aware of for WMP,
Click to expand...

Well whatever's running it, removing what
I found from the registry didn't stop it, and it didn't come back. but WMP was
loaded again just now. It's not in the startup folder, or the 2 run registry
entries. It's not a service. And I have no idea what started it today. orANY
Day..
 
So it's running, according to tlist.exe , what command line is it being run
with? You can check this from a cmd.exe prompt by running
tlist.exe wmplayer.exe | findstr /i cmdline
That's probably not illuminative, but -- worth a look, perhaps.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--
There's no supported entries in the "Run" section that I'm aware of for
WMP,
Click to expand...

Well whatever's running it, removing what
I found from the registry didn't stop it, and it didn't come back. but WMP
was
loaded again just now. It's not in the startup folder, or the 2 run registry
entries. It's not a service. And I have no idea what started it today. or
ANY
Day..
 

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