Stop full screen auto-hiding top and bottom bars

As we all know when we play any video in Windows Media Player in Full Screen (Alt+Enter), there use to be two blue bars, 1 at top and 2nd at bottom. Earlier it use to be stuck there on the screen but I don’t know what I did, now the bars get hidden after few seconds. But I don’t want them to hide.

Whenever this happens I restore my system using HP recovery CD every time and it works fine for few days but again something goes wrong and the blue bars go away after few seconds.

My System is Windows XP SP3 with Windows Media Player 10. Do you guys have any idea how can I stop these bars auto hide in fullscreen?

You don’t need to restore your system every time just to stop auto hiding of WMP bars. There is a key in registry using which you can stop it permanently. Just go to Start > Run > Type “regedit” and press Enter. Now navigate to the following location and turn off the set:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\VideoSettings] "UseVMRFullScreenCntr"=dword:00000000

I guess, in WMP10, you can disable that feature from Windows Media Player > Tools > Options > Performance > Advanced menu dialog. You will find the options here itself. I cannot tell you the exact option because am now at WMP 12.

Or alternatively you can also download a utility named “TweakMP” for changing these settings.