how would u check the system attribute........im having this same problem. how did u completely fix it.

To find out if a directory entry has the System attribute set, you have to open the Command Prompt. Then navigate to Music folder, which is usually under your profile as "My Music"

cd /d "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Music\"

Then get a listing of the directories that have the System attribute set:

dir /ads /s

This lists directories only that have the System attribute set. Then use the ATTRIB command to reset the System attribute:

attrib -s *.* /d /s

This will turn off the System attribute on all files and directories. A number of files that are hidden will generate errors, but that can be ignored.

Good luck!

tell u wat.........my music folder is actually in "D:\MUSIC\My Music" thats where my music is all stored...u think u can help me out with that.....i have 2 drives just incase u want to noe. my music is in the second drive "D:\MUSIC\My Music"

If the music is in d:\music\my music then you type the following at the command prompt:

attrib –s “d:\music\my music\*.*” /s /d

You’ll get a number of errors on files like Desktop.ini, Thumbs.db, Folder.jpg and AlbumArt*.jpg

Those errors are okay. The directories will have their system attribute reset.

^_^,Pretty Good!

Okay, when I look at my attributes all I see is the letter A....what can I do now?

Thanks Chuck!  Worked for me.  No idea why the system attribute was set on all my music after I reinstalled Windows.

Thanks!!! Same here - a reinstall of XP had set the S attribute on my music folders. I have been "touching" the same drive with XMMMS on Ubuntu, so perhaps did it? Who knows? Any, all fixed now and many thanks.

Hi! Have the same problem, but with my image directorys. Tried out the way you explained above, but with no results. None of my directorys has the attribute set. But stil the WMP can't find the directorys. I'am usin win xp.

Great ! Many thanks ! I have been looking for a long time to make this work out and finally found it !

Wow!!!  been searching for months.  Had moved all my music to my d drive and wmp only scanned certain folders.  Was driving me crazy.  Ran the attrib command and wammo all files/folders found!!  Thanks.

I have been searchign for so long, but i didn know how to, but now i know how to do that, and i have added more 650 songs in my media player

Thank you so much, I ran the command and had about 1,000 things scroll by way too fast to read any of it. But WMP is adding all the files now.

If my music has many sub-directories, must I access every single folder manually to change the attributes?

Thanks in advance.

Brilliant solution!  More helpful than the Micrososft site.  I bought a new Vista computer and half my music colleciton wasn't showing up. This did the trick.  Microsoft bug???

Thanks for the attrib trick ( attrib -s *.* /d /s), it's working.

There once was a man named Chuck,

who gave a man named Brian some luck.

Chuck made  Brians day,

so Brian said Hey,

THANK YOU CHUCK FOR YOUR HELP AND LUCK!

Thanks bro i been workingon this for way too long.

thanks for the help.. certainly solved all my problems!

thumbs up!

didn't know we all face the same problems don't we..

Excellent bit of advice,

I'd redirected my music folder to another drive and it seems vista had set the system attribute on some of the folders for some reason.

This sorted it out.

Cheers,

Thanks, it works....

Been trying for days to find the solution...

Thank you for all, it works PERFECT

I've been looking for a fix for 6 months

Thanks a lot

I know this sound stupid, but how do you open command promt to start with.

Thanks

andy: type "cmd" in the runwindow. startmenu -> run

Or you can use the windowsbutton on your keyboard + R to get to the runwindow.

"cmd" or "command.com" is the right one to type in.

Thanks Chuck,

  This worked perfectly on my Vista Business OS with my music on a mapped network drive.

To remove all attrib on your music, so that Windows Mediaplayer finds them, do as follows:

Make a new text file (right click the desktop-New-Text dokument). Type attrib –s “d:\music\my music\*.*” /s /d

and save the file as name.bat. Now run the bat file by double clicking.

Boy am I glad I found this posting.  I recently rearranged/deleted my entire library to start over and nothing except for pictures was making it back into WMP11.  I had tried deleting the databases, etc.  This worked like a charm!

I tried this and it seemed to work great, EXEPT:

I have TWO external hard drives with music on them (lots). They are in files w/structure like this: j:\My Music 2\Artist\Album\Songtitle....Your fix found 330 or so more songs (of my 110k+), but still there are files/songs there that are not being recognized. The ID3 tags are accurate so I'm just kind of lost. Can you suggest anything?

Works for me! Thanks!

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thnx Charles Opperman

it did work perfectly

you should b recruited by Microsoft, lol

Wow. Nice find. Worked perfectly.

I keep getting "parameter not correct"

Hey guy i typed this in exactly

attrib –s “C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\Shared\*.*” /s /d

and then i got this error

– C:\Documents and Settings\HP_Administrator\Shared.*.*

plz help i dont know what to do :(

i did not get any other errors and nothing else poped up if u need to see a screen shot e-mail me at

Nadeem_ishaq35@hotmail.com

THx in advance

hey its my i have another error lol and i styl need help wiht my first one :P

attrib -s *.* /d /s

when i step in that it says it suppesed yo reset the files but for me it says" Not resetting file....?????? what do i doooo??

ok i have gotten it to work now but not theres another error... i cant connect to the internet (im on my bros) when i did "attrib -s *.* /d /s" it turned off the System attribute on all files and directories but umm how do i put them back on??  plz help

i m devloping a websit for uploading and downloding videos

as well as audio so i wnt to know tht hw to use windows media player in asp.net 2005.. plz help

Thanks, spent a few days on this.  I set my samba server to ignore the system attrib (archive, hidden) and use the permission setting for read only.  I use SWAT, so I do not know the config file text.  This seemed to fix "I cannot load files into Vista Media Center" from my samba share.

Great fix.  Anyone know how I can get XP (SP3)  to not set the attribute on my music folders in the first place?

Thx

Chuck:

You don't know how happy I am that I found your post on this. This issue has been driving me batty for months. I've tried everything I knew, researched, read, and still couldn't get it fixed. When I ran the command to switch the "s" attribute off, BAM, it worked. I feel like I owe you dinner. Or perhaps better these days, a tank of gas for you car.

THANK YOU

Wow it actualy works thanks

Hey Chuck - excellent fix!

I recovered 240 songs!

Awesome job... worked great!

Beauty!!! worked a treat just wish i'd found this months ago  Thankyou very Much!!!!

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I've had a similar problem that required a different solution.

I have albums composed of WMA files with missing ID3 tags on an external USB drive. This drive is monitored by WMP, but it was ignoring the files w/o the tags, and would not add them to the library no matter the library settings or how many times I tried to force the update.

I ended up:

1. Copying the files over to the local personal (default) music folder.

2. Deleting the Media Player database file (you may get away with forcing the library update, but if that doesn't work, there are instructions available at support.microsoft.com/kb/925718).

3. Did a 'find album info' and used the search function to find the correct album.

4. And then did an 'Apply Media Information Changes.'

I wouldn't say this was slick, but it got the job done. My only other advice is that if you have file names such as 01 Track 1.wma, rename the files with the correct names first.

Best of luck.

And oh yeah,:

5. After the files were updated, I copied the local album folder back onto the external drive, replacing the previous folder. You will want to be sure to copy the entire folder so that the hidden files go with it (or show hidden files first, and then copy them all).

6. I've had mixed luck getting the library to update with the new file location, but if it doesn't, it does not seem to hurt deleting the entire database and letting it rebuild. With WMP, it seem like this is often the best solution, and it has never caused me a problem.

Excellent advise mate, many thanks for sorting out a problem that has plagued me for months now

Oh thanks mate you are such a star..

it was really bugging me that quite a few of my albums weren't showing. After re-running Add to Library it found another 800 missing tracks....

Great Chuck, I have been wondering around by days, you are great, thanks a lot.

Not even on MS had an answer for that.

Thanks man, i'v been suffering for days and now case solved:)

that worked.. thanks a ton.. i have been trying registry settings for hours.. this worked as promised.

Thanks man..i was unable to add all the mp3 files and this had plagued me for months ...

Wow, thanks a ton! It's 4 years after the original post but saved my life after a reformat and a bunch of different hard drive transfers.  Found all 20,000 of my songs!

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