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Remove Folders From Media Center’s Media Library

Remove folders from Media Center’s Media Library

How to remove folders from Media Center’s Media Library, including those that you can’t normally.

Vista Media Center (and maybe XP Media Center too... I haven’t tried) has a problem where it randomly adds extra folders to your media library, and doesn’t provide any way to remove them. It also shows some Sample Videos that came with Vista. It’s often nice to remove these.

1. Normal folders can be removed from Media Center using Media Center’s Library setup options. Normal folders can also be added by placing shortcuts to them in the C:\Users\<Username>\Videos folder, or C:\Users\Public\Public Videos, and this seems to work a little better than adding them through the Media Center library setup options.
2. To remove the Sample Videos, delete them and their folder. They’re in C:\Users\Public\Public Videos.
3. To remove folders that you can’t remove using the normal methods in Media Center, delete all the files in the C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player folder. To do this you may have to temporarily stop some Media Center services running, as some of the files may be locked by them and cannot be deleted. This only removes the library databases, it does not remove the files themselves.
1. To temporarily stop services, type services.msc into the Search or Run boxes and hit enter. Scroll down until you find services such as Windows Media Player Network Service, and right click them and select Stop.
4. Reboot the computer.

More Information

For more information about:

• Media Center, see thegreenbutton.com and www.xpmediacentre.com.au

Updated about 3 yrs, 9 mths ago (April 14, 2008). Know a better answer? Let us know!

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