For various reasons media databases within Windows can get corrupt. Symptoms include music and other files never appearing in the library, incorrect artwork, changes made not registering etc etc. Both Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player run off the same database, so errors in one will be seen in the other.
To fix the Windows Media Player database do the following:
- Go to Start and type ‘services.msc’ into the search box. This will start Windows Services
- Scroll down the list of Windows Services until you find Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. Select it, and then in the top left hand of the window click on ‘stop the service’.
- Now open Windows Explorer and go to ‘\Users\YOUR USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player’ replacing ‘YOUR USERNAME’ with the name of the user who’s database you want to reset.
- Now in the folder you’ve opened, sort by filetype and delete all the Windows Media Library files.
- Go back to stage 2 and restart the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service
Now, when you restart Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center the database will rebuild and your files will start to appear. Be patient as this might take a while, but once complete your media database will be free of errors.
