How To Refresh Media Player Library

Sometimes you will need to rebuild your library in Windows Media Player on Windows 7. Here's how.

Update: Microsoft has ended support for Windows 7. You should be using Windows 10 or above. But do note that Windows 10 still includes Windows Media Player. You just need to search for it.

If you have an Xbox 360 or a Windows Mobile phone, then your best bet on syncing all your music and media would be Windows Media Player 12. Sadly enough, you may have already encountered problems refreshing your library and keeping things tidy. But, with these simple steps, you can rebuild your music library in just a few clicks.

How To Rebuild The Windows Media Player 12 Library

Step 1 – Disable The Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service

First of all, make sure that Windows Media Player is closed. To start, click the Windows Start Menu Orb and type services.msc in the search box. Then press Enter to open the Services window.

Opening Services

From the Services window find the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. To disable it, right-click it and select Stop. A small dialog box may temporarily appear while the process is stopping.

Stopping The WMP Network Sharing Service

Step 2 – Delete The Library Database File

Keep the Services window open; we'll need it again, later on, to re-enable this service after we first eliminate a few files.

Open up Explorer and Browse your way to:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player.

From here delete all of the files named CurrentDatabase_***.wmdb and LocalMLS_*.wmdb. (Warning – there are several LocalMLS_*.wmdb files, make sure to delete them all!) (Note – The "*" stands for a random number, the numbers differ on each machine, so we can't really tell exactly what the file is called. There are only a few files, though, you should find them easily.)

Deleting The Music Database Files

Step 3 – Re-enable The Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service

You can now close the Explorer window and get back to the Services window. From the Services window, find the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service again, but this time when Right-Clicking select Start. Again, a small dialog box will temporarily appear while the process enables itself.

start windows media player 12 service

Step 4 – Refresh Your Library

Now all you have to do is open up WMP 12 and watch your library rebuild itself. Depending on the number of songs you have, and how fast your computer is this process can take from 30 seconds to 15 minutes. For my little 429-track library, it took less than 2 minutes, which is quick keeping in mind that all my tracks (yes, all of them) are tagged with album art and all other information.

Conclusion:

This trick will certainly help you whenever you're having library problems with WMP 12. But let's hope that we can forget all about Media Player issues and other annoying problems once Service Pack 1 For Windows 7 is bought out to the public.