Window Media Player Changed Images To 200 x 200

How upset was I when I found that my music collection for 43 years was now destroyed.

Yes WMP12 had changed it all, everything was working fine till the update.

So all those years of keeping all images at 300 x 300 was worth it .....Not.

Luckily I had a backup.

Media Player should make a copy of the image in a smaller size to use in media player, but leave my images as is.

I use MCE and Music Browser and it uses my large images and does not touch anything at all.

When media player resizes these image it then expands it and distorts images.

Anyway I found this info that may help :

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itpromedia/thread/747b74e2-4f29-42f2-8457-f9513bee5c23/

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=75461

Don't get me wrong, the Latest update to Media Player 12 has had a lot of work done, just upset over the images.

Now I will have to spend another two days working out how to stop my media from being touched, then make sure it doesn't. What happens when I add new music, will I remember to modify those folders to read only etc.

This is what I have done after hours reading everyone else's disappointment

I tried this on a new windows 7 machine with Media Player V12.0.7601.17514

I created one artist folder, with one album in it and a folder.jpg picture of 300 x 300.

I then went to Start, from search programs and files, keyed in regedit.

If you are not familiar with regedit don't attempt this.

If you are feeling confident go to File then Export create a name then back up to folder first.

Scrolled to HKEY CURRENT USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences

One thing most people have failed to explain is that you will need to create these entries.

LargeAlbumArtSize = dword -:ffffffff


SmallAlbumArtSize = dword: - ffffffff

Right click on preferences and choose new dword, enter LargeAlbumArtSize

Double click on this entry and change the value to ffffffffff

Right click on preferences again, choose new dword, enter SmallAlbumArtSize

Double click on this entry and change the value to ffffffffff

All options in media player were turned off - found in tools then options, check every tab and turn off all updates of any type.

I the ran Media player and added the music folder and this time the folder.jpg was not changed, only hidden.

I always keep my operating system files shown.

This unfortunately keeps a desktop.ini file on the desktop but it doesn't bother me.

It allows me to see the folder.jpg files once hidden and that is important to me.

If you cant see your hidden folder.jpg then go to Start Then Control Panel, Folder Options, view, show hidden files, folders, and drives and also untick hide protected operating system files(recommended).

After a few years, everything seemed to be OK till I noticed that some folders had their folder.jpg files changed to 200 x 200.

Not sure why yet but it may be due file sharing on other computers (keep you informed)

Found this : http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-pictures/album-art-size-windows-media-player-12/6a2c3727-43ae-43a3-ace1-c48008811e92?page=2