[Giggleheimer]

I have a problem with Windows Media Player 10. I have Windows XP and have been using it for about 6 months now I guess.
I tried to copy all of my music to a DVD-RW as a back - up, but for some reason it didn't work. I went into Windows Media Player, and lo and behold, I had 2700+ files rather than the usual 1350!
However, when I go into the Shared Music folder, everything is fine, and there is only one of each track.
Some of the duplicate files are corrupt and go that orange colour when you play them, but most of them are just fine and play like normal WMA's.
Sometimes, when I click on one of the songs, its duplicate dissapears, and there is only one. As a solution I could probably play all the songs and most duplicates would go away, except that would take 90 hours!
The strange thing is, the new files don't take up any space on my 40GB hard drive, although WMP10 shows that the total file sizes had doubled to over 5GB.
Another weird thing is, within 15 minutes of discovering my problem, 400+ of the duplicates just disappeared!

I need to know how to get rid of all of the duplicate music files quickly, easily, with minimum risk.
And if anyone can explain why I can't back up the music to a DVD-RW, that would be great too.

Thanks!

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a little melodramatic, don't you think?

From your description, it sounds more like you have pointers in your media file library doubled rather than doubled files.

From within the library, hit f3 and do a knew search. Select NEW FILES AND OLD FILES (this is for wmp 9--may be slightly different in 10)

[gerryf]

a little melodramatic, don't you think?

From your description, it sounds more like you have pointers in your media file library doubled rather than doubled files.

From within the library, hit f3 and do a knew search. Select NEW FILES AND OLD FILES (this is for wmp 9--may be slightly different in 10)

[Giggleheimer]

OK. So I was a little melodramatic. What can I say, I am quite proud of my music collection, and hate it when something messes it up.
I did your little F3 search, and you were right, it found 1349 files, the amount of music that I SHOULD have. But after that there is nothing more I can do. I can only hit the "close" button on the search, and then nothing happens, back to having loads of unnecessary music.

I feel you are REALLY close, you sound like you know what you are talking about, and maybe this solution would work on WMP9. Perhaps it is a little different for WMP10, but it might still work. Can you think of anything else? It would be a big help!

[Giggleheimer]

Hold that thought! Its working! The duplicates are going away, the library is shrinking back to normal size! It just took a while to start cos there's so much!
You are a genius man!!!!!!
THANK YOU!