How can I stop WMP 11 from automatically downloading album art??

[Ronstang]

I am rather anal about how my music collection is organized. I have a very specific way of tagging my music files and I have album art for %99.9 of all my albums, even the really obscure ones. I DO NOT like WMP messing with any of these items. Trying to use MCE 2005 on a HTPC has given me fits and now that I am using WMP 11 as my primary music player on my normal PC it is making it worse. I don't want these programs messing with my files or my folders. I am tired of having my album art OVERWRITTEN with incorrect or crappy resolution album art. I have learned to make a copy of all album art in each directory so I do not loose hard to find art.

Is there anyway to prevent WMP from downloading album art automatically? If not is there a way to simply prevent it from accessing the internet as a workaround? I just want the madness to stop.

Thanks.

 

[lxskllr]

Go into player Options, go to Library tab, then under Automatic media information updates for files, deselect Retrieve additional information from the Internet. That should stop it from downloading track names, and album art.

 

[ajskydiver]

I haven't found MCE 2005 to be a problem, and lxskllr has already outlined what to do with the media player...be warned though, Vista's MC is HORRIBLE with regard to album art - resizing originals to 200x200, changing text in ID3 tags, etc.

I went back to MCE 2005 because of how intrusive Vista's is.

 

[BlueWeasel]

This is a 180 from what the OP is asking, but is it possible to just download album art using WMP11?

I recently upgrade to and started using WMP11 and I like it so far. I do all of my tags manually, so I disabled the feature in WMP11 as lxskllr mentioned to prevent automatic info download.

However, I don't have ANY album art at all. Is it possible to get just that using WMP11 without screwing up tags, etc., or is there a better way to get album art?

 

[Ronstang]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
Go into player Options, go to Library tab, then under Automatic media information updates for files, deselect Retrieve additional information from the Internet. That should stop it from downloading track names, and album art.

I did that when I installed WMP 11 on this MCE 2005 desktop I am using right now. It made no difference. I even double checked last night as I watched WMP 11 OVERWRITE MY ALBUM ART IN FRONT OF MY EYES. It simply downloaded it's version of the album art into the folder I had opened and clicked on a song to play. I watched the file change. It seems as if MS doesn't care what you want as it is going to do exactly what it wants, which is no surprise.

Even in MCE 2005 I have had IDv1 tags written to files when I specifically delete all IDv1 tags as I do not like or use them. It kept driving me nuts that I would keep finding music with IDv1 tags when I knew for a fact that I had already made sure they did not have them. Album art seems to be a different story though. Turning off the feature that lets WMP get info from the internet seems to stop the tag changing....but it does not stop album art from being downloaded.

I guess I am going to have to find a way to simply block my HTPC from internet access while staying on the network.

 

[ajskydiver]

Rongstang, if you're using MCE 2005 and WMP, you have to specifically tell BOTH of them not to update files.

I can't remember the specifics in MCE 2005, but it IS there...if you look, it something like "Access internet for media" -- although I could be way off. Definitely under settings somewhere.

Also, if you're using an extender, you have to do a registry hack to tell it not to do it for the MCX1 account.