Windows 7 Cannot Delete Phantom Entries in WMP

daprez546

New Member
This isn't a huge issue, but it certainly is an annoying one. I set up a data partition which contains all of my music and common files. I clean installed the 32-bit version of RC 7100 on a separate partition, and the 64-bit version of RC7100 on yet another partition. Vista 64 remains on its own isolated drive. Installation for both versions went without a hitch. I removed all of the sample music and a couple of music files I had installed just for testing in each RC version. Then I pointed the WMP to the common files disk and everything referenced (pointed) back as it should. I also deleted all of my music files from Vista 64 and then pointed the Vista 64 to this common area, just for comparison.

However, now in both RC versions I have a phantom entry at the end of the music list, while in Vista 64 I do not. It is "Unknown Artist" and 0 bytes, but it cannot be deleted by menu (non-functional without explanation screens) or by direct access to the directory structure (permissions issue). However, this same problem can easily be remedied in Vista 64 by renaming the .wmdb to .old and letting WMP create a new one. This takes only a few minutes and results in a new error-free listing of music. I have done this for similar problems with WMP in the past.

I have tried removing all of the pointers and loading the references again, but the phantom entry never goes away, even when the list contains only the phantom entry itself.

Any thoughts on (1) why the phantom entry occurs in the first place or (2) why the phantom entry cannot be deleted at all?

ADDED LATER: Identified the culprit. When I did a "Select All" on the music folders, the hidden file "desktop.ini" got tagged as well. When the group was imported into WMP, the offending file naturally couldn't be identified as a media source. And its status as a hidden system file prevented it from being deleted. It's all cleared up now. So as on SNL ... nevermind.
 
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