Win Media Player (wmplayer.exe) will not open, and I cannot uninstall it

Don’t know why Windows Media Player is not opening on my XP system. While troubleshooting I found wmplayer.exe to be 63KB, 10/18/2006 in windows explorer. When I double click this file, instead of opening it gives me an error message saying “I must close Win Media Player” but what to close if it is already not running. I thought upgrading WMP can fix the problem hence I tried updating and now it says that I have latest version of Windows media player.

So the last method left is to reinstall the Media Player. But when I try to remove it again says "close Windows Media Player.” There is no process running about the same in Task Manager as well. So the conclusion is I cannot open, I cannot upgrade, and neither remove Windows Media player. Is there any working fix for the same?

Please help.

Probably there would be some process running regarding Windows media player in system process. Just open task manager, sort it by name and see if you can find one. If it is there, click on it and end process. This should
clear wmplayer from memory to allow you to uninstall and then try with a
fresh install. Let me know the result.

I appreciate your help LeSueur but i already mentioned in my above post that there is no process running about windows media player. Also there is no icon about the same in the system tray. Also it says that i have the latest version of WMP installed on the system. But now, presumably/possibly as a result of running setup_wm.exe, I can now open WMPlayer. I did not have to uninstall and reinstall Win Media Player.