How to stop Windows Media Player from scanning my disks and usb sticks?

I discovered this behaviour only a few days ago when I noticed the USB stick was accessed (blinking light) when I was not doing nothing.
BTW, this is Vista and I have disabled disk indexing and readyboost scanning.
Looking into the process tree I found it was Media Player, a program I don't use (and I despise, and would very much do away with).

Since Microsoft has made impossible to uninstall this fine piece of... software. I used Linux to replace the wmplayer.exe executable with the one from media player classic. Since then, I keep getting several times per session a message from media player classic (dressed up as wmplayer.exe) that it's being invoked with a wrong syntax.
Here's what (Vista? Scheduled programs? The Evil Lord?) is asking WMP to do:

wmplayer.exe /skipFUE /RemoteOCXLaunch /SuppressDialogs​

I would like to know

1. What the heck is it doing and why, since I have never used it (and in fact I got the welcome screen when I fired WMP up - I don't think I've ever got past that) and I disabled WMP association everywhere I could find them.

2. How do I stop it? I was not able to locate anything related to this in Vista scheduled programs.

3. Who is 'responsible' for this call? Vista? Does it happens in XP and 7 altogether?

Any help?

(ops, lapsus in post title can a mod correct "media"?)

 

most likely it's background scanning to update the media library for you. check if you find any media related services, turn one after the other off, and see if the message stops.

i wouldn't, but so wouldn't i have disabled disk indexing (debunked, it's nonsense to do so) and readyboost scanning. and i would not have dropped media player for anything else.

but if you go your way, try checking your services. it's most likely checking if there is some music on your usb stick to manage.

 

Thanks for your answer.

Point is: who started it, since I never used wmp in the first place. I recall there was a welcome screen I've never got past. So, who is assuming I want to use that program? Mr. Vista?

I had already disabled every service that looked remotely linked to WMP (since I was bugged by its showing up every time, despite all my effort to kill it in the cradle). Obviously, since this service is invoking WMP, it has to be different. Any hint what could it be? I ran through the list right now and I did not see anything that could be invoking Windows Media Player. Turning service off at random looks pretty dangerous to me.

I just found out that the readyboost service is running. Funny, I was sure I had it disabled, or at least put to manual... I surely disabled it to run on my usb sticks since it kept it busy for ages right when I needed to move its files for working on the desktop.

As for WMP, I very much hate that invasive program. In my eyes it worse that a virus: it's a metastasis.
This particular scanning has delayed my work, since the stick was fairly full and it took ages before WMP finished poking its nose into my files (I resolved by killing the process tree). I don't want my time to be wasted from media-related programs when I'm working. Especially when it's I program I did not want to run. Ever.

 

Ok, why don't you try this:

Control Panel > Programs (or add/remove programs) > Turn Windows Features on or off > popup window pops up > scroll to Media Features and expand > uncheck Windows Media Player and whatever else of those you want to shut off > click OK

 

That option is not available in Vista.

In any case, I suspect this is AutoPlay. Try turning off Autoplay -- search for "autoplay" in the control panel. If you really want Autoplay (it's a security hazard anyway) then at least select "Take no action" or "Ask me every time" for any non-optical media.

 

That's a bum deal. Thanks for correcting me.

 

go to control panel and select another media software as your default media player

 

I believe his problem is not autoplay related. He didn't indicate that the problem happens upon selecting audio files to play or upon insertion of an audio CD. It appears more as a background process that WMP is performing.

 

I understand that but selecting another software as your default media player might stop from WIndows media player from popping up and scanning. I could be wrong and might not work, but its worth a shot. He can always change it back.

 

I think it's safe to assume that the OP does not use WMP. Hates it actually.

 

yep. I don't use WMP, I never used it, and never will use it.

One of the first things I did on this laptop was to disable autoplay and changing the default player (I also wanted to uninstall this cr**, but there is no way to do that without crippling Vista). Nonetheless, at time WMP comes back in one form or the other (possibly certain updates restore the deafult settings of Vista, I don't know - it really is a metastasis).

And yes, what is happening is coming from outside WMP itself, since the wmplayer.exe is called by some other process in stealth mode.

This happens for sure every time I plug a USB stick in my laptop and several times when it is in, plus sometimes right after extracting it. I suppose this sort of stealth scanning has already happened with my hard disk (I guess this was one of the causes of the HD light always on during the first days of using Vista) but since Vista has already sticked its nose into my files there, there is no need to scan it againg unless I put other stuff on it. Removable disk are different and gets scanned every time.

It feels like someone else is prying into your privacy, actually using up computer resources, wearing out flash memory and wasting my time (in the case of the 'unpluggable because it's being accessed' usb stick) for...

yeah, for what?

I would very much like to know who's invoking WMP and why.

Anyone would care to experiment? Use a trick to own the WMP folder (I used linux) and rename wmplayer.exe to oldwmplayer.exe and replace Media Player Classic exe file (found in the zip file here Download Media Player Classic Home Cinema, Free Video Player Download) by renaming it wmplayer.exe

When the mysterious service (Vista's?) calls wmplayer.exe, the new exe will put up a warning because it's being invoked with unknown parameters.

(you can always change it back)