Troubleshooting Windows Media Player 11

If you have a Creative Zen portable media player, make sure that you update the device’s firmware to the latest release before upgrading your Windows Media Player to 11 release. If you upgrade your Windows Media Player before upgrading your device firmware, then your system may not recognize your Creative Zen player.

The same solution goes for Philips GoGear and iRiver media players. Make sure that you upgrade your player’s firmware (click for Philips GoGear Support Site or click for iRiver Global Web Site) before installing Windows Media Player 11.

If you have upgraded your operating system to Windows Vista by means of an upgrade DVD or if you have upgraded your Media Player to 11 from a previous release under Windows XP, then you may have this problem of being directed to a Microsoft web page to download content.

If you are running Windows XP, click Start, Run and type “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer” (without quotes), in the opened window, click the shift key and right-click Internet Explorer, and select the “Run as” item. Click “Following user”, select “Administrator” and enter the Administrator password. Then, navigate to http://drmlicense.one.microsoft.com/crlupdate/en/crlupdate.html page and install the ActiveX control. Then click the “Upgrade” button at the top of the page.

If you are running Windows Vista, you do not need to run Internet Explorer as Administrator. Navigate to http://drmlicense.one.microsoft.com/crlupdate/en/crlupdate.html, click “Continue” under the User Account Control dialog box and “Install” in the Security Warning dialog box. After the ActiveX control is installed , click the “Upgrade” button at the top of the page to install the fix.

You receive error messages when you try to authorize Xbox 360 to use with Windows Media Connect, after installing Windows Media Player 11. If you are receiving an error message under Windows XP (Home or Professional), cancel the Xbox installation, open Windows Media Player and go to Help and follow the steps described under “Sharing your media” section. Restart the Xbox 360 setup program and follow the steps. If you are receiving the error message under Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, do not cancel the installation but finish it. Then open up Windows Media Player, go to Help and follow the steps under “Sharing your media” section.

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When you open more than one instance of Windows Media Player, the next time you start the player, you don’t see your media library. You then have to rescan your disks to build up your library. Or when you search for files with Windows Desktop Search, the process hangs and does not respond. Microsoft addressed the issue and made cumulative fixes available for Windows Vista 32-bit systems and 64-bit systems.

When you install a third-party program and it installs its own version of the wmp.dll file, the Media Player becomes unresponsive. This issue is addressed under Knowledge Base article 947541 in Microsoft’s Web Site. Follow the instructions on the web page to fix the problem.

The following programs and their associated files where stated cause Windows Media to crash. The problem is due to the old versions of the programs. To solve the problem, you have to install their latest versions:

• Nero – neroburnplugin.dll
• FFDShow Filters – ffdshow.ax, mpegsplitter.ax, xvidcore.dll, igdumd32.dll, mpegsplitter.ax
• Nvidia Network Access Manager – ffdshow.ax
• Bit Defender Anti-virus - sockspy.dll
• Intel 945/946/965 Display Drivers (may cause crashes and video issues)

I’d like to thank personally to Zachary Demian Robinson for his excellent collection on Windows Media Player problems.