How can I disable the automatic switch to "library" mode in Windows 7's Media Player 12?

Question

Whenever I plug any USB device into my computer while running Windows Media Player 12 in Windows 7, it will automatically swtich the player from the Now Playing mode to Library mode. This is intended to faciliate syncing between Media Player and MP3 players, but it happens for any USB device.

I'd like this to not happen since it's infuriating to see this take place while I'm watching something on a separate screen in Media Player just from plugging in a USB key.

This has nothing to do with Windows autorun, and nothing to do with versions of Windows pre-7.

And no, switching to some other video player is not an option; I've tried them all, none are as good as stock Media Player in 7.

Solution

According to this recent question Stop Windows Media Player showing synchronization dialogue when USB device plugged the trick is to let it partially sync so that you get the WMPInfo.xml file created on your device (and leave it there), you can then go into WMP's options and your device will be listed along with the options uncheck "Start sync when device connects".

The questioner was asking about WMP11 on XP, but I've confirmed that this also works with WMP11 on Vista. Haven't had a chance to try it on my Win7 machine at home yet, but it does look very likely to work.

Comments

[Admin]

Not an ideal solution, but I just disable the Portable Device Enumerator Service.

[John T]

i suggested this and he bit my head off, watch out =O

[Ivo Flipse]

Haha, Bite me :P

[スーパーファミコン]

It's a Media Player 12 issue in 7, not a Windows issue. Changing the autorun has no effect -- it's the first thing I tried months ago when this started bugging me. This has nothing to do with Autorun, nor Windows XP for that matter -- WMP12 isn't even available on XP.

[Ivo Flipse]

You do understand that if it happens when you plug something in Auto-run is the first thing to suspect? Plus XP did have a different version of WMP which might have that problem

[u01jmg3]

This trick doesn't seem to work on Windows 10 on WMP12.