Windows 7 / Windows Desktop Search 4 Indexing

To follow up, I have determined that the ReadyNAS is working perfectly and that Windows 7 is indeed capable of using the network share as a Library location, albeit a non-indexed one.

I was able to use WMP12 successfully with the ReadyNAS, although I had problems with WMP12 crashing at one point and corrupting my database, so that it seemed that I wasn't able to use the ReadyNAS as an indexed library location. I also noticed that WMP12 wasn't accepting tags that had worked perfectly in WMP11.

Anyway, I got around this problem easily by:

1. I deleted the WMP database according to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925718. I deleted all contents of the Media Player directory. I then let the library rebuild by running WMP.
(Be sure to stop the service first and re-start it later as indicated in the MS support link)
(Note that I still found that WMP would crash if I ran it continuously for 5-10 hours or more, so I simply stopped and restarted it every few hours.)
(I think WMP/WMC would build the library without WMP open, but it probably would have taken a lot longer)
(I also backed up the MEDIA PLAYER folder along the way in case it crashed again - it never did, though)

2. Using JR Media Center (or you could use MediaMonkey, etc. . ), I updated tags for all the troubled files.

3. I edited the wmpfolders.wmpd file and changed the Dirty="0" to Dirty="-1" for all folders with changed files. Then I restarted WMP12 to re-scan those folders.
(This is a handy trick in general to force WMP to rescan certain parts of your library, since they've removed the "scan now" option from the program.

For step 3, the file wmpfodlers.wmpd will be created in the directory %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player. You can simply copy this path into the search box that pops up right above the start button to find it. I assume this folder is empty or even non-existent before you run WMP or WMC. Once you've closed both WMP and/or WMP, you can open the file with notepad and edit it directly. Then save your changes and run WMC to see the changes get applied.

here is a sample entry from my wmpfolders.wmpd file: (I inserted the periods at the start of each line to show the indents)


Quote:
<Dir Name="Alan Parsons Project" Mod="128878546134813768" Dirty="0" Exclude="0" New="0">
..........<Dir Name="Best of The Alan Parsons Project, The" Mod="128878546134593768" Dirty="0" Exclude="0" New="0"/>
..........<Dir Name="Eye In the Sky" Mod="128881652748886000" Dirty="0" Exclude="0" New="0"/>
...</Dir>


If I edit it and change Dirty="0" to read Dirty="-1" and save the file, WMC will rescan the folder when it starts up. This is a great way to force WMC to update sections of your music library manually, since WMP12 no longer has a menu item to rescan the library and apply changes. Of course, you can wait and eventually WMC will discover changes, but I'm not that patient if I'm fixing mislabeled files or something.

You can also change the Dirty="-1" parameter for parent folders and all the folders inside it will be rescanned.


4. For the few files I had that still were not corrected, I used JRMEdia Center to REMOVE all existing tags, then I wrote new tags. That seemed to clear up whatever was causing the WMP hangup.

5. Now that the library is complete, it's very fast and very stable.

One more word of advice, before you add folders to the WMP library, go through the WMP options carefully. If your music files are already tagged the way you like, you should make sure to uncheck all the options that download information from the internet and apply them to your files. WMP will not necessarily correctly identify your music and it may overwrite your tag information or worse, replace it with "unknown" fields. In my case, I do all external tagging of music files with J.R. Media Center and I use WMP/WMC mostly as a viewer/browser of my music. If any tags came through with problems, I simply updated them in JRMC and then had WMP rescan the folders. JRMC is also the best program I know for getting album art and attaching it in bulk to your music. You may also use a program like MediaMonkey to do the tagging of files. I wouldn't recommend using WMP for tagging your music. That said, many people do. . . it's all a personal preference. And it depends on how large and well-tagged your music library is. We even subscribe to Rhapsody and have it save a downloaded copy of our subscription files into a folder within my music folder, which is then scanned as part of the music library and added to our WMP/WMC collection effortlessly. (So we can have our library, use Rhapsody subscription service, and still use WMP/WMC as our viewer/player.)

Now I am a happy camper, using Windows Media Center with Windows 7 to access all our music with a great interface. The ReadyNAS works great, even if it can't be added as an "indexed" library location.

Tim