Windows Media Center opens up by itself sometimes

Question

Windows Media Center opens up by itself sometimes. How can I stop this from happening? I don't even use this program at all.

It just comes up full screen with no apparent trigger. No keyboard shortcuts that I know of.

Solution 1

Haha, guess what! After 5 years I actually know how to make it happen intentionally!

The keystroke to cause Windows Media Center to appear is Windows+Alt+Enter.

As for how to disable it? Just look at the other answers I guess.

Now, it does seem strange to me that I never figured this out before (on my previous computer) so it's possible that a keyboard malfunction can cause this, but I'll never know for sure if it was that, or an actual typo on my part originally.

Solution 2

There are a couple of things I've seen cause this:

Multimedia keys on the keyboard - if your keyboard has multimedia keys, some of them may launch MCE. With some keyboards it is easy to hit these by accident.

Remote control receiver - I have an MCE remote control receiver attached to my PC. Pressing certain buttons on my universal remote (the ones you would expect, but also others like the "Info" button) causes MCE to open up. Some laptops have receivers built in, so this might apply to you even if you don't think it should.

Check for command line parameters to ehshell.exe. Not sure if any are passed to MCE but might give you a clue. Since you're running Windows Vista, you can see the command line right in the Task Manager. View menu -> Select columns -> check "Command Line."

Solution 3

I have it too sometimes. In the three years I have Windows 7, it happened to me maybe 4 times.

I don't have a remote control or media keys.

At first, I thought it might be some weird shortcut I accidentally pressed, but this last time this couldn't have been the case. I was watching a video in mplayer classic (which I've been doing every day for the past few years), went to the toilet, came back and pressed space (the play/pause key). After a few seconds, media center popped up full screen, made noises, all while my video was playing. It even changed my screen resolution to something higher than it used to be.

I tried the trick for turning off windows features, but I won't know if it's effective until I reboot, which might be months from now.

For future research, These processes were found, with these parameters:

1 "C:\Windows\eHome\EhTray.exe" /nav:-2

2 "C:\Windows\eHome\EHShell.exe" /homepage:Home.xml /prefetch:0

3 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" /SkipFUE /RemoteOCXLaunch /SuppressDialogs

3 was a child process of 2.

Solution 4

The following information was found here.

Have you gone to Programs and Features and uninstalled and reinstalled Windows Media Player?

Uninstalling and Reinstalling the Windows Media Player:

Step 1. Uninstalling the Windows Media Player:

1. Go to Start and in the search type "Turn Windows features On or Off".

2. Click on "Turn Windows features On or Off".

3. Browse to the Media Features and uncheck the mark in front of Windows Media Player.

4. Restart the computer

Step 2. Reinstalling the Windows Media Player:

1. Go to Start and in the search type "Turn Windows features On or Off".

2. Click on "Turn Windows features On or Off".

3. Browse to the Media Features and place a check mark in front of Windows Media Player.

4. Restart the Computer.

If you are having trouble using Windows Media Player, try using the troubleshooter to see if that fixes the problem.

Open the Windows Media Player Settings troubleshooter by clicking theStart button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, typetroubleshooter, and then click Troubleshooting. ClickView all, and then click Windows Media Player Settings.

Also, people in the forum posted that they were using the Razer Lacosa keyboard. If you are also using this, it may be an issue with the keyboard. I would just uninstall Windows Media Player if you don't use it, just to save time.

-Good Luck!

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Comments

[Aaron McIver]

At machine startup? After opening a file of some type? Keyboard have a default key which will open your default media player? Unfortunately everything happens for a reason...we just need to figure that reason out...

[Asuma Shinohara]

Not after machine startup. Not after certain file type. I was just typing along in my code editor and it came up. I can't imagine any keyboard shortcut I could have pressed but I know it is possible. @Aaron

[Asuma Shinohara]

It is not a multimedia key. It just happened today. I selected text, pressed Ctrl+Space, Ctrl+Enter and Enter in NetBeans editor which was running a bit slow at the time. (Also I seriously doubt it is a NetBeans problem.. It just happens that is the tool I am using most of the time.) and then my laptop screen (secondary monitor) went blank and then the Media Center started. I do not have a built in receiver or a remote. How do I get to Process Explorer?

[stone]

Process Explorer is a Microsoft utility. Added a link to the Process Explorer download page. If you're running Windows 7 (not sure about Vista), you can see the command line right in the Task Manager. View menu -> Select columns -> check "Command Line." Also, since you are running NetBeans most of the time, it is not unreasonable to suspect it might be related. See if you can make it happen without NetBeans running, to narrow down the issue.

[stone]

Correction: Since you're running Windows Vista, you can see the command line right in the Task Manager. View menu -> Select columns -> check "Command Line."