Cannot add media to Windows Media Player.

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I'm trying out WMP.

However, I cannot add my music files!

I have followed the instructions:

1) Click Organize, Manage libraries, Music.

2) Click Add, then navigate to the folder you want to add. Click it, and then click Include folder.

However, I can't get beyond 1 because the "Add" option doesn't come up. In fact, when I click Music in Manage libraries, nothing happens at all!
 
You logged in as an admin user ? try right clicking on WMP icon and select run as administrator.

The system is tied into the Windows library function, try restore the default library (right click libraries in explorer), other than that I'm not really sure you could reset Windows media player by going into control panel\programs\turn windows features on or off then remove WMP, reboot, then reinstall WMP through the same way.
 
you can also simply drag a folder from Explorer into WMP and it will add it to your managed libraries..have you tried this way?

Doesn't work unfortunately. I get a sort of "no entry" symbol on the cursor when I attempt this.
 
You logged in as an admin user ? try right clicking on WMP icon and select run as administrator.

The system is tied into the Windows library function, try restore the default library (right click libraries in explorer), other than that I'm not really sure you could reset Windows media player by going into control panel\programs\turn windows features on or off then remove WMP, reboot, then reinstall WMP through the same way.

Yes I have tried running as admin.

I am nervous about "restoring default libraries" as I don't want to mess with my folders. As it happens, all my media is on a NAS, but I can't see why that should affect things.

Very frustrating

By the way, I can't remove and reinstall WMP because it is an integral part of Windows 7. I have run a Windows repair tool but it doesn't find anything wrong with it.
 
Yes I have tried running as admin.

As it happens, all my media is on a NAS, but I can't see why that should affect things.

.

Think it could be...iirc WMP just like Windows will only index locally stored media.

MS thinking is that Home networking is often slow (poor wi-fi etc..) so slow links will cause lag within Win7 libraries and WMP...

You can get round this by using this cracking little free tool Zorn Software » Blog Archive » Win7 Library Tool - Simplicity is the Essence of Good Design

This tool will allow you to add remote storage locations to your Win7 Libraries. Simply add your music folders to your Win7 libraries, windows will see it as an Indexed source and allow you to add it in WMP.

I use this tool all the time to redirect the Documents/Music/Video/Photo libraries for users on the PC's in my home to my NAS for centralised storage
 
Thanks. I actually used that tool when I was esetting up my NAS!

So I do have my default libraries pointing to the NAS already. So unfortunately, this is not the problem/solution.
 
Yes I have tried running as admin.

I am nervous about "restoring default libraries" as I don't want to mess with my folders. As it happens, all my media is on a NAS, but I can't see why that should affect things.

Very frustrating

By the way, I can't remove and reinstall WMP because it is an integral part of Windows 7. I have run a Windows repair tool but it doesn't find anything wrong with it.

Libraries are not an actual physical folder just links added to the database of folders that show when you click on libraries so restoring the default just resets the list to it's default values which is your music/photo/docs folders.

There must be something wrong with the library system if WMP wont let you add any folder even if it's on the local disk.

You can or at least should be able to remove WMP it's in that section I mentioned under "media features".
 
The system is tied into the Windows library function, try restore the default library (right click libraries in explorer), other than that I'm not really sure you could reset Windows media player by going into control panel\programs\turn windows features on or off then remove WMP, reboot, then reinstall WMP through the same way.

Yep I tried this, I turned it off, rebooted, WMP wasn't there so turned it on again. The problem remains.

Unfortunately there is no way of downloading WMP for windows 7 so I can't do a clean install of it.
 
If you used the unofficial indexing tool for network shares and those paths are included in the music library already then WMP12 should be seeing those folders.

You could have encountered some sort of bug in the process, if you can undo that it might restore it back to normal operating mode, thats my best guess.

WMP will read network shares without indexing though they wont be part of the Windows library just the WMP music library.

The only other way to add network shares through the Windows library is to setup an iSCSI target, this makes the NAS behave as an internal HDD on Windows.
 

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