WMP: How to Erase, Reset, and Correct Your Windows Media Library

Contributor Icon Contributed by AlexTheBeast  
Tag Icon Tagged: Windows  

Your media library in Microsoft Media Player giving you fits? Just blast it and start over. This is a easy way to get WMP to reindex your music files.


If you move a ton of music around like I do, your media library through Microsoft Media Player gets jacked up. To fix it, the easiest thing to do is just to erase your old library files… and have WMP find your new files.

This will not erase your music files.

How to Get WMP to re-index your music:

    1. Close Microsoft Media Player for at least 30 seconds
    2. Click Start and then Run
    3. Type the following into the textbox:
    [list]%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player

4. Click OK and a folder showing you your library files will appear
5. Erase all the files that end with .wmdb
6. Open Microsoft Media Player
7. Push F3
8. Select the locations for your music files
9. WMP will reindex your music

 

26 Comments -


  1. Anonymous said on November 1, 2008

    Excellent Advice! Worked perfectly!

  2. Richard said on November 15, 2008

    Excellent if windows media player is using 100% CPU and freezing or stuttering

  3. Anonymous said on November 25, 2008

    didn’t work for me. In the Add to Library dialog folders didn’t show and when I manually added the folders and clicked ‘OK’ nothing happened.

    What else should I do?

  4. Brandon said on February 5, 2009

    This is why media player is crap. Wake up microsoft , the fact that people have to do this should be a great clue to what to do with your player in the future. How hard is it to fix it, really? Apple seems to be able to do this. Do the people at micorsoft that work on this just sit around and do nothing all day???

  5. Tony said on February 5, 2009

    This is really useful if your XBox refuses to update the videos in its media library and nothing you do seems to work.

  6. sd said on February 23, 2009

    thanks

  7. James C said on April 23, 2009

    If WMP is still not adding files, it might be because they’re marked as “Hidden” on the filing system. Files copied from out from an iPod, for instance, are hidden by default.

    Right click on the top of your music folder and untick the “Hidden” box, then make sure you select the option to apply to all files and subfolders when asked.

  8. Daniel said on May 10, 2009

    Excellant, thank you!

  9. Phil said on August 16, 2009

    Great, thanks. Works fine with Media Player 12 on Vista too.

  10. Anonymous said on August 26, 2009

    Gotta a PS3. It detects the Media Player Sharing device (my PC), but when navigating thru folders on PS3, it says no titles. This started to happen after I renamed a folder on my PC.

    Any ideas as how to reset Devices list on the sharing list in Media Player in Vista…???

  11. Anonymous said on November 1, 2009

    I HAVE TWO C.D.’S IN MY LIBRARY NAMED “UNKNOWN NAME 10/31/09″.
    I CNNOT MAKE A COPY OF THEM BECAUSE A SIGN COMES UP THAT SAYS
    “MISSING MEDIA USEAGE WRIGHTS,CONNECT TO INTERNET AND ADD MEDIA INFORMATION. HOW DO I DO THIS?

  12. levidos said on June 20, 2010

    Thanks :D

  13. Selcukseber said on July 4, 2010

    thank you solved the problems

  14. Synchronizprayer said on August 19, 2010

    Tried everything else first.. This works, thank you!

  15. Sam said on September 24, 2010

    Thanks heaps! This solves one of those irritations I’ve had with WM player

  16. Sultan Orange Blue said on October 5, 2010

    thank you this is help me :)

  17. Wb640 said on October 11, 2010

    Did not solve my problem yet, of WMC not showing my movies anymore. Also, the *.WMDB files were locked, had to issue before deleting first these:
    taskkill /F /IM ehshell.exe
    taskkill /F /IM ehtray.exe
    net stop /y WMPNetworkSvc

  18. Tazz3L said on October 15, 2010

    Thank you! This worked for me with the added step of having to go into safe mode to delete the last of the library files. The WMP re-indexed everything, including my play lists!
    (I had to use safe mode for the last library file because XP kept saying the file was in use and it could not delete it.)

  19. Laurelwreath Hope said on October 20, 2010

    I have Win 7 and Media player 12. The only change was I drop the [list] in the command line deleted the files and opened the Media player and volia everything was working great. Thanks so much for this it really helped!

  20. Logan Young said on October 25, 2010

    Very simple, but were it not for this guide, I wouldn’t have found it. Thanks a lot.

    @Brandon: The necessity for this has nothing to do with Microsoft. The need to do this comes out of how we maintain our file systems. Things get moved, removed, replaced, copied, overwritten, etc. You can’t expect WMP to know where you’re moving your music to all the time…
    It’s simple housekeeping. Every few months, clear out your library as per above, reset your library folders and import your music again. Now I know about this guide, I’ll be adding this on my bi-yearly maintenance along with defragging my drive.

  21. Aloush37 said on January 11, 2011

    will doing this delete any playlists?

  22. superdave said on February 13, 2011

    i would like to point out that i havethe same issues but much worse with itunes and haven’t found any solutionyet

  23. Banhmi_keppate said on August 3, 2011

    tks bro i worked perfect

  24. Sai Das said on October 23, 2011

    Searching on Step #3 produces nothing in W&U 64bit WMP12

    Now what?

  25. Lucas said on January 20, 2012

    Thanks. I was doing it a far more tedious way before. I should have thought of the .wmdb thing. :)

  26. Joe said on February 1, 2012

    If I wanted to completely backup my music directory, including the windows media library, would it work if I manually copied my music directory (with all the files) and then copied these very same .wmdb files to the same directory on the backup PC??

 

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