Vista - WMP 11 "bugs"

I've had Vista Home Premium installed for a little over 2 weeks now and have
recently noticed a couple of problems with WMP 11 (initally worked just fine).

1. When attempting to select Tools ->Options, the multi-tabbed options
window does not appear. A single tabbed window labeled "Burn" is what
appears and only offers options associated with burning media files to blank
discs. There is no discernable way to access the options menu for WMP.
2. WMP 11 will not retrieve album information from the internet once a CD
is inserted. Also, the "find album information" option locates the proper
info but "finish" does not then substitute this info for the displayed
"unknowns".

I have not installed any 3rd-party software that associates with WMP, and am
obviously unable to uninstall and reinstall it since it is now part of
WIndows Vista. Any ideas on how to repair this problem (or reinstall WMP)
without resorting to reinstalling Windows entirely?

"dsweida" <dsweida@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:39DF2474-00CF-4355-AB89-EAC146853A5F@microsoft.com...
> I've had Vista Home Premium installed for a little over 2 weeks now and
> have
> recently noticed a couple of problems with WMP 11 (initally worked just
> fine).
>
> 1. When attempting to select Tools ->Options, the multi-tabbed options
> window does not appear. A single tabbed window labeled "Burn" is what
> appears and only offers options associated with burning media files to
> blank
> discs. There is no discernable way to access the options menu for WMP.

This sounds like a mis-applied group policy. Is this in a business or
corporate environment? It makes sense that a business would prevent users
from burning CDs. If they got it all backwards, the result would be just
what you're describing.

> 2. WMP 11 will not retrieve album information from the internet once a CD
> is inserted. Also, the "find album information" option locates the proper
> info but "finish" does not then substitute this info for the displayed
> "unknowns".

Are you giving it time to write the library when you click Finish? I think
it adds info to the database and that may take several seconds if the PC is
slow or if there is something else going on utilizing disk or CPU.

I know that it always works right for me except that I have to switch back
and forth a couple times between rip and now playing before the album art
shows up. Even that, I wonder if it is more the Internet delay than
switching - I may be just being impatient.


>
> I have not installed any 3rd-party software that associates with WMP, and
> am
> obviously unable to uninstall and reinstall it since it is now part of
> WIndows Vista. Any ideas on how to repair this problem (or reinstall WMP)
> without resorting to reinstalling Windows entirely?

Thanks for the response. No, this is a home PC that I network with a laptop.
As i said in the previous post, WMP was running perfectly after installation
and network setup. I can't specifically recall when both problems started,
so I can't reliably tie them to an event that may have been the cause. As
for the album info, I waited several minutes after inserting the CD, and
several minutes after trying to apply the album info that I manually searched
for. In both cases, nothing happened.

"Dale" wrote:

> "dsweida" <dsweida@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:39DF2474-00CF-4355-AB89-EAC146853A5F@microsoft.com...
> > I've had Vista Home Premium installed for a little over 2 weeks now and
> > have
> > recently noticed a couple of problems with WMP 11 (initally worked just
> > fine).
> >
> > 1. When attempting to select Tools ->Options, the multi-tabbed options
> > window does not appear. A single tabbed window labeled "Burn" is what
> > appears and only offers options associated with burning media files to
> > blank
> > discs. There is no discernable way to access the options menu for WMP.
>
> This sounds like a mis-applied group policy. Is this in a business or
> corporate environment? It makes sense that a business would prevent users
> from burning CDs. If they got it all backwards, the result would be just
> what you're describing.
>
> > 2. WMP 11 will not retrieve album information from the internet once a CD
> > is inserted. Also, the "find album information" option locates the proper
> > info but "finish" does not then substitute this info for the displayed
> > "unknowns".
>
> Are you giving it time to write the library when you click Finish? I think
> it adds info to the database and that may take several seconds if the PC is
> slow or if there is something else going on utilizing disk or CPU.
>
> I know that it always works right for me except that I have to switch back
> and forth a couple times between rip and now playing before the album art
> shows up. Even that, I wonder if it is more the Internet delay than
> switching - I may be just being impatient.
>
>
> >
> > I have not installed any 3rd-party software that associates with WMP, and
> > am
> > obviously unable to uninstall and reinstall it since it is now part of
> > WIndows Vista. Any ideas on how to repair this problem (or reinstall WMP)
> > without resorting to reinstalling Windows entirely?
>
>