One of the most frustrating problems I ran into here with my Vista + 360 extender setup was that my music was getting updated with information from the Internet (amg.net -- the All Music Guide site that MS has partnered with) when running in extended mode, even though I had explicitly disabled all Internet-related options under WMP on my host machine (and that the local machine was behaving as expected). 

The real pain this caused on the extender was that my music would be re-indexed on the navigation screens once its metadata changed (e.g. the updates weren't case-consistent, so things like "Alice In Chains" became "Alice in Chains", some albums had multiple artists and they were no longer listed under that one artist, but that of the multiple artists, etc.).  Additionally, my cover art (folder.jpg) would be updated with that downloaded from AMG, often times at a lesser quality (I'm talking about actual quality here, not resolution or size) ... something I don't want, especially since I've spent a lot of time finding good artwork.

Well, following a lot of research and meticulous testing, I'm very pleased to announce that I have found the fix for this problem.

WMP offers two Internet-related options to help manage your media library -- connect to the Internet and override all other Internet-related settings, and retrieve metadata updates from the Internet and apply to your media (either partially or in full).

Unfortunately, these settings are applied at the per-user level, and therein lies the problem.  When you first configure your library with WMP on the local host machine, your settings are stored in your user registry hive (HKCU), and not at the machine-level (HKLM).  So you disable these settings, create your music library, and everything works ... for that local user.

Now ... when you create an extender connection, and all of the "local settings" have been applied to that extender during setup, you think you're safe from unwanted media updates because you configured it to be that way ... right?  Wrong.

When the extender connection is created, so is the corresponding Mcx* user (Mcx1, Mcx2, etc.).  Unfortunately, not all of the "local settings" get associated with that account, namely the Internet-related options from WMP.  So when you run your extender for about a day or so, odds are you'll come back to notice, both on the extender screen and on your local filesystem, that the music has been updated ... and unwanted.

So why does it do this?  Because you haven't had a chance to disable the Internet-related options from WMP for this new user (remember that they're stored per-user, and not at the machine level).

So how do you do this?  Well, you can't log into the local machine as that user, since you don't have the password.  And there are no su- or sudo-equivalent programs for Windows that allow you to execute a process as, or run in the shell of, that user without knowing the user credentials (sidenote: I do wish Windows offered the equivalent of "su -i user" from an administrator account).  So then what?

The only option left is to configure WMP for the Mcx account through the registry ... which requires you to know which settings to update.

Using the registry monitoring features from Process Monitor, I boiled the Internet-related options of WMP down to the following 2 keys (both are DWORDs):

        HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\ForceOnline

        HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\MetadataRetrieval

The "ForceOnline" key maps back to the "Connect to the Internet (overrides all other settings)" field in WMP, and the "MetadataRetrieval" key maps back to the "Retrieve metadata from the Internet" flag ... both found in the WMP options menu.

Setting "ForceOnline" equal to 0 will disable the feature, while a value of 1 enables it.

Setting "MetadataRetrieval" equal to 0 will also disable the feature, while a value of 2 enables it (not sure why it's 2, but that's what it is).  As a side note here, if you have this feature enabled under WMP, you'll then be presented with two radio buttons (update missing fields or overwrite all fields).  Those two settings are controlled by the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences\AutoMetadataUpdate key.  This key is completely ignored when MetadataRetrieval is disabled (set to 0), so you need not worry about it here.

Fixing this problem for your 360 extender is easy at this point.  Note that in my case, I first deleted all of my libraries for the 360 extender account and my local account (after I had stopped watching those folders), and then removed and replaced my music on the filesystem with fresh, untainted copies.  All instances of Media Center were also closed.

Open up the Registry Editor (regedit.exe), go to the HKEY_USERS key, and then load the hive for the Mcx user (File->Load Hive..., then navigate to the NTUSER.DAT file for your Mcx user, usually found in C:\Users\Mcx1 or equivalent).  When loading the hive, be sure to give the loaded hive an appropriate key name (as an example, I call mine "Mcx1").  If successful, the Mcx hive should be loaded under HKEY_USERS (e.g. HKEY_USERS\Mcx1).

Now with the hive loaded, navigate down to the Media Player preferences (e.g. HKEY_USERS\Mcx1\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences).

The ForceOnline and MetadataRetrieval keys don't exist by default, so you'll have to create them (remember, they're both DWORDs).  Set both values to 0.

Once that's done, unload the Mcx hive (File->Unload hive) and close out your registry editor.  Be sure to unload the hive.  If you forget to do this, and try to load up your 360 extender, the Mcx account won't be able to get exclusive access to the NTUSER.dat file and will fail to connect.

And .... you're done!

Recreate your local library against the new, fresh copy of music, using your local account.  Then load up the 360 extender and make sure that it's monitoring your music folder.  It will go through the process of creating its library (don't dismiss the dialog box, either, that tells you it's ok to do something else during this process ... because it's not).

Run the extender through your tests, let it sit overnight, turn it on and turn it off.  In all of your tests, you should find that your media (both at the library and the filesystem) does not get updated from the Internet!

Of course, this doesn't fix the cover art problem (where it only shows up for the first song, and not the subsequent ones) ... but there's already a workaround for that (http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/4/155576/ShowThread.aspx).

But what it does do is keep your media consistent.  And you'll find that you won't have unnecessary updates to your cover art (folder.jpg), either ... or other unnecessary album art inserted in your music directory.  It also helps put you on level footing in trying to solve the album art problem, since unwanted metadata updates won't get in the way.

I hope this helps all of you who run into this problem.  Curious to know how it works for others as well.

Steve

I'm struggling to get my 360 synched with my Vista Ultimate, and it has been less than intuitive, at the least. 

  As for this issue, I believe that if you have Vista Ultimate you can use the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc from the 'run' command) and globally disable this feature for all users of the computer (including the mcx account). 

Open up the group policy editor and go to:  User Settings || Administrative Templates || Windows Components || Windows Media Player  In the right pane you'll see an option for Prevent Music File Media Information Retrieval   2x click this to open it up.  Select enabled and click OK.  You may have to reboot or run 'gpupdate /force' to apply the settings immediately (it does so at regular intervals), but this will globally apply the setting for all users. 

Remember - Group Policies trump and will reset all individual settings so you'll have to go back into gpedit and disable it if you want to turn it off, so use with care!  This is not as dangerous as reg mods, but I always recommend caution. 

John

PS:  Here's the 'explanation' of this GP setting verbatim from Vista Ultimate:

Prevents media information for music files from being retrieved from the Internet.

This policy prevents the Player from automatically obtaining media information for music files such as Windows Media Audio (WMA) and MP3 files from the Internet. In addition, the Update my music files (WMA and MP3 files) by retrieving missing media information from the Internet check box in the first use dialog box and on the Privacy and Media Library tabs in the Player are not selected and are not available.

When this policy is not configured or disabled, users can change the setting of the Update my music files (WMA and MP3 files) by retrieving missing media information from the Internet check box.

Just wondering if there is an update to prevent a 360 from updating my music library while extended. I deselected all options in WMP and VMC and performed the registry hacks as described. I even have my library folder as read-only, which prevents WMP, VMC and my 360 from altering tags but it doesn't prevent my 360 from downloading incorrect album art. Also, I have folders with miscellaneous mp3s that have blank album tags. My 360 assigns album names to these files, keeps track of this info in a database and improperly sorts these tracks all without modifying the tag (because of the read only option). Is there any full-proof way to prevent all or some of the above from occuring? BTW- I have Vista Home Ultimate so group policy editor is not available.

Thanks for any suggestions

McMeller:

Hello, What to do when I use more than one Extender? Do I have to load the NTUSER.DAT file for Mcx2 too? And whitch key name do I have to use? Mcx2? Somebody experienced?

cw-kid:

McMeller:

Hello,

What to do when I use more than one Extender?
Do I have to load the NTUSER.DAT file for Mcx2 too?
And whitch key name do I have to use? Mcx2?

Somebody experienced?

Yes you have to load a second hive for the second extender MCX2 call the key name MCX2 and do the same adding the DWORDs.

I've just tested this out with two Linksys DMA 2100's and Windows Home Premium and can confirm this method works. So thanks to the original poster for the information.

Cheers.

 Just looking at this again today, I should link my thread here to this one as they are both related. For future reference.

This method of using the group policy editor is alot easier I guess though this option is only open to people with Pro and Ultimate versions.

Im testing this method on my network and seems to work at the moment.

Thanks

We need Microsoft to sort out a solid option actually on the Xbox 360 so its a simplier method. 

 I have a quick question about the Registry edits to stop the updates.  Unfortunately I can't use the Group Policy due to some of the OS's I'm running.

 I have:

• Win 7 Home Premium Machine that I'm doing the CD rips/tagging on.
• Win XP Pro Machine that will act as a File Server and 'host' the Music Files
• Win 7 Pro Media Center Machine that will access the music files from the XP machine.  (I may build more of these in the future)
  

Which machines require the Reg change?  Just the XP Pro box?  If so, I don't see the exact keys/MXP accounts referenced.

 Thanks!

For me there is another piece in the puzzle.

How to turn on UIPLugins for WMPLayer for MCX users.

I use wmptagplus for flac support.

really want the mcx1 password so i can "runas /profile /user:mcx1-xyz wmplayer.exe"

now if only i new the registry keys involved in turning on the uiplugin and configuring the plugin or the MCX1 password.