Today I noticed that my media player open very slow. Since I removed a hard drive the entire library in Windows Media Player 12 (operating in Windows 7) needs to be rebuild. The player can start again with a new database. With previous versions of WMP this was straightforward – I would get to the Media Player folder within Local Settings and delete all the files (leaving the folders). Now when I try to do this I get the message ‘This action cannot be completed because the file is open in Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. Close the file and try again.” Here is how I solved that problem.

1. Close the Windows media player.
2. Go to Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools\Services. Stop the “Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service”.
3. Navigate to: C:\Users\kwu\AppData\Local\Microsoft\MediaPlayer
4. Rename or delete all files with .wmdb extension.
5. Restart WMP and ensure you have the desired library locations and WMP should automatically repopulate itself.