Windows 7 Media player and cpu usage

[knaveman]

I just installed Windows 7 RC on my main computer. I use it to hold all my music and video files and serve them up to two Xbox360's and a laptop. Windows Media Player has been scanning and updating my library non-stop and eating up all my cpu. Wmpnetwk.exe is the culprit. It makes my computer slow and media streaming almost unusable. Computer is an HP Pavilion with AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+ 2.40GHz with 2 GB Ram. My music is stored on an external USB hard drive and my video on an internal 500GB hard drive.

The only solutions I have come across so far are to disable the wmpnetwk service and prevent it from running, but from what I understand I need it to stream to my Xbox's. Does this have to do with the Library feature or is there some kind of bug? Any fixes?

 

[knaveman]

After some deep, deep googling I found that some people had problems with wmpnetwk.exe under vista. One post said that a "corrupt" .avi was causing prblems for him. I searched my fiels and found one .avi. Deleted it. Now all is well. Don't really know if that was the thing that fixed it or not.

 

[Radenight]

Did you try using a different media player? VLC is an excellent choice, and it's free! I use it for all my video needs.. Winamp still holds the crown for all my music needs.. (Both work perfectly in Windows 7)..

 

[knaveman]

Does VLC or WinAmp let me stream to my Xbox360?

 

[Radenight]

Unfortunately VLC doesn't.. However, Winamp does through Winamp Remote.. Here's a link to a guide that shows you how to do it.. Link Removed Good luck, I hope it works out for you...