Media Player 11 continues to run in background after closing

I was hoping that someone could help me. I really think that I might
be missing some setting or something on Media Player 11 which is
causing my problem. Although I have read that many others are
experiencing the same issue, but I have not found a solution anywhere
yet.

When viewing any video file or listening to any audio file, etc. and
then closiong Media Player 11, Media Player appears to close, but acts
more as if it is minimized. Even though it does not appear in the
toolbar, I can still hear the sound from the content and then if I
click on the Media Player icon to re-open it, the video is still
playing as if it never stopped. I have found that I have to eiterh
manually hit the stop buttone from within Media PLayer and then close,
or I have to Ctrl+Alt+Del and kill the process.

I am running Windows XP Media Center edition 2005 with all all of the
most recent updates. I also have Dual NVIDIA GeForce 7950, quad SLI
video cards and a Creative Labs XFi Pro Elite sound card. All of the
drivers are up to date.

Is this a known issu? Or, am I simply missing some setting
that will stop this from happening? From what I have read, this seems
to be a know intermittent bug that is not limited to WMP version 11.
Others have posted experiencing this problem with versions 9-11. Does
anyone know a fix, work around or even an add on product that will
reslove this?

Try reinstalling WMP11and see if the setup can replace any corrupt files in
the program. If not I would just keep looking around the internet to see if
anyone can give you a solution to it, I will try and help by looking for you
over the next few days

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling twice, but still the same
issue. It's wierd that I have WMP11 on another computer in my home and
do not have this issue. I have WMP configured the same on both systems
too, but the systems are not the same in terms of hardware. The system
that is giving me issues is a much higher end system.

Have you tried running

sfc /scannow

Let the system file check run to completion and see if that makes any
changes to the result.

as posted by Neil Smith in "cannot run windows media player - bad image?"
It may be a corrupt file but it might be in Windows rather than WMP. Just a
thought.

I have the EXACT same problem. what i find really messed up is it will continue to run in the background if you click 'X' (or alt-f4) BUT it seems to close nicely if you go to file -> exit

Another Windows quality product.

I'm having this same problem too.

I am running Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition, and using WMP 11 that came with it.

When I click on the X to close it, it's still running. Have to go to task manager to close it.

I haven't really spent a lot of time troubleshooting the issue.

My guess is that it could be an issue with a 3rd party codec, not really sure what else could cause it.

I had Windows Vista Ultimage 64-bit edition on my machine before, but I was running an Athlon 64 X2 processor. I had to re-install Windows Vista when I upgraded to an Intel Quad Core Extreme processor. Ever since I did a clean re-install, WMP11 has been acting funny. Worked fine before on my AMD setup.

WMP won't shut down if and only if something is specifically refusing to let
it shut down.
kinda covers the basics here. Either something else that is still using WMP
is still open (most likely) or one of the drivers is locking up on shutdown.

This is just a thought, but it seems to me that I didn't start
experiencing this problem until I started playing Full Tilt Poker,
which I've noticed has a problem (on my Vista machine, not mac) with
the sound turning off after about an hour with multiple tables going.
I don't think I had the WMP problem before Full Tilt.

Just a thought, I'm sure it's probably caused by other programs too,
but it would be interesting if FT was the only one to mess with WMP.

.... just another item in a long list of irritating things since
upgrading...

I've been having the same problem as you too. I recently stumbled upon this site:

I read the part that says to update sound card drivers and graphics card drivers. So i decided to try sound first (since it was the sound that wasn't stopping) And Bingo, it worked.

I did a clean install, and Vista found a driver that worked for my soundcard automatically from the internet (Yay Vista!) but, it wasn't the updated one.

Sorry for posting twice.

Anyway, find out what kind of soundcard you have, go to the manufacturers website, find the most recent Vista Driver, download it and install it. That should solve your problem, if you haven't figured it out already.

It's just a bug in WMP, or some common codec. I've seen the same issue on
multiple systems, at home, at work, and even on computers at a local
retailer. Doesn't matter if the OS is XP or Vista. Doesn't matter if the
source is from a hard drive or from a web site.

The bug I've noticed occurs if WMP is terminated while playing a video,
apparently before all of the video is cached. Regardless of the size of the
video or the amount of uncached data, the process "wmplayer" will continue to
run for about 10 seconds after closing the WMP window. During this 10 second
period, WMP can't be run again. The work around is to go into task manager
and end the "wmplayer" process, in which case, WMP can be immediately after
ending the "wmplayer" process.

If I use a different media player, such as Nero Showtime, this problem
doesn't exist, so I doubt it's really related to a codec or some other
background activity.

I have a lot of videos on my web site (mostly racing game videos), and when
checking a forum post with links to multiple videos, I start up task manager
so I can quickly end "wmplayer" after checking each video link and aborting
WMP.

.... WMP can be immediately run again afer ending ...

aborting WMP, then clicking on the next link to run WMP without having to
deal with the 10 second delay.

This indicates that something else on the system told the player not to shut
down.

Was/is there a portable device attached to the system? That's the usual
culprit.

[wintersfj]

I also have Vista Ultimate and I also must Ctrl - ALt - Del to close the Media player process and Outlook process before I can run them, if I have opened them more than a few times. I have found many people on the net with the same problem. Microsoft products are not cheap, but I would not mind the money as much if they fixed their bugs.

I recently had this problem, but the problem has gone away. I think it might
of perhaps had something to do with either A) in the task manager the WMP
network process running in the background that i manually ended. OR B) i
recently downloaded a up-date to the WMP Video Codec and since then have
noticed the problem go away.

Though i haven't restarted my computer since the problem has gone away or
since I've performed both A and B. So i cant say for sure if I've really
solved the issue. But i will be re-tracing my steps and restarting my
computer soon to see if the problem has truly gone away.

Will keep you informed with a few days.

[midiman]

I had noticed this problem too. Also noticed that some programs when closing would scroll up rather than instantly close. I tried to change effects in appearance properties but that didn't help. So I then changed the screen resolution in properties/settings for display settings, selected OK and then changed back to original display resolution and selected OK. For the moment that seems to have fixed both problems.