Trying to get the right support.
Karl didn’t hold back when he decided to talk about what he thought of SBS support and it reminded me of the trouble I have when trying to get an answer to what I think to be a really simple question. There have been many times when I have to call on my friends within the MotherShip to get a problem solved, all because the normal methods of support just don’t work (or work quick enough).
For example, and I put my home user hat on for this one, I have Vista Ultimate at home (very nice!) with the ever-so-shiny Windows Media Player 11 (great!). Now for those on my MSN Messenger list, you’ll know I play all manner of musical tracks practically all the time! So when I had to go to work a few mornings ago, I shut down Media Player and wandered off to get my stuff.
However, something wasn’t quite right and I soon realised my music was still playing! I went upstairs to find that although all my programs were closed, something hadn’t told Velvet Revolver (not Elvis) that I was leaving the building! I had to re-open WMP and press ’stop’ and then close everything down again.
I have spent time looking up the problem (trying to avoid duplicating threads etc…) but the WMP Newsgroup has a very few questions being solved and there isn’t much else to go by.
If anyone has any ideas as to why my music keeps playing despite shutting down Windows Media Player then I would be very grateful. In addition, I promise to upload the problem (with answer - if it works) onto the newsgroup so that someone else doesn’t have to scratch their head furiously!
Turn this round to the end-user’s point of view and you can understand why talking to an experienced Microsoft Partner is critical to any business’ ICT support. In the same breath, it’s why our community works so well!
I dont actually think it’s a problem as such more of a “feature”. It caught me out initally. You do have to stop the music playing before you close the program otherwise it just carries on.
I think the idea is you can have your music playing without Media Player getting in the way
When i first used Vista i jumped into Media Player to have a look, closed it, then panicked for ten mintues while i tried to get it to stop
If i’m wrong then someone tell me the solution?!
Oh and your right, Karl certainly doesn’t pull any punches!
Might it be something to do with the media player toolbar plugin or even the live messenger plugin which effectively acts like a keep-alive function for media player so whilst you close the main player window an instance of media player is still running albeit in the background.
I thought that as well but turning off Messenger before shutting down WMP doesn’t seem to solve the problem.
If it’s a feature then it’s naff! I want to press the red cross in the top right and put my music to bed!
When you “shut down Media Player”, were your sure that the music stopped playing? And if you run Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) could you see wmplayer.exe still running when you “shut down Media Player”? If so then the player is not really shut down. The UI of the player is dismissed but the process is still running, that’s maybe why MSN messenger still thinks player running.
Could you check if wmplayer.exe still runs when you close player? There is a programming trick called “remote OCX” for WMP, so that when player UI is dismissed, the player process is still running. Youc an find it out by using task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc). If wmplayer.exe is still running, then messenger won’t think player is shut down.
Oh, did not know that my comment needs moderation so I sent comment again.
Just as way of an update…
Now after some recent updates (non-WMP related) the problem or ‘feature’ has gone away. I can now shut down WMP using th red cross and the music halts on shut down.
Unfortunately Feng, this means I can’t test out your request but if anyone else can then it would be interesting to see what is happening.
Susanne
Glad to see the problem gone. Please keep sending support request whenever you have any problem about WMP.
I would just like to add that after the last update (a security fix for Vista 64-bit) that the problem has come back again
[…] Media Player keeps playing August 2, 2007 at 8:29 am | In Windows Media Player, Windows Vista | Susanne posted a while back about a problem with Windows Media Player on Vista where the music continues to play even after you have closed the program […]
this issue is not specific to Vista. I have the identical issue with WMP in XP-Home. The problem seems to be spectific to WMP11. Please HELP!
I just started having this problem today with my player! And I have Media Player 10 on XP Pro!! It was kinda spooky to still hear the music. The red X is supposed to close the application, not just the window. wmplayer.exe still showed in Task Manager (under Processes but not open Applications) But wmplayer.exe was still under Processes even when I stopped the song first. I solved the problem by stopping the process in Task Manager.Then I started the player again & closed it (song still playing) by clicking the icon top left & selecting “close”. I think this re-associated the red X to close the whole application,because now there’s no problem. I can now use the red X to shut everything down & not see wmplayer in task manager. Don’t know what started this. I’ve never added any plug-ins to WMP or to MSN Messenger. And MSN Mess. was shut down months ago as I don’t use it. This all just started on it’s own. Yesterday I did a chkdsk & defrag, but that couldn’t have done it?!?…
I had the same problem, WIndows Vista, Media Player 11, the music kept playing even after I closed media player. The problem apparently was with a sidebar gadget called “Now Playing.” Even if the gadget wasn’t enabled on the sidebar, just being installed caused WMP to keep playing in the background. When I uninstalled the gadget my problem went away.
Also after reinstalling the latest version of “Now Playing” it started working fine.
I believe that I have tracked down the problem on my computer at least. I removed all USB storage devices before using Media Player and Media Player closed fine and the music stopped by clicking the ”X”. Then I inserted the USB storage device and re-opened WMP. When I tried it closing it via the ”X” this time it closed the window but the music continued.
This leads me to think that WMP is synchronising with the storage device as the problem only appears when it is connected, and this is causing the conflict where it continues to play.
I did not have ”Now playing” installed so I doubt this is the problem (with my PC anyway).
Hope this helps
That’s great - my problem seems to have cleared up after a few Vista updates. I’m sure this problem should have been easier to solve and it’s good that you and others have taken the time to try and help solve it for others.
Thank you.