XP refuses to see MP3 Player

[Metrogirl]

I bought a generic MP3 player. I wanted to load it up with MP3s which I'd been playing on the PC or Mac. Not DRM stuff, not paid-for stuff, but good honest (!) rips of CDs.

 

I plugged the player into my XP machine, which I'd foolishly updated to WMP10 at some point. The MP3 player immediately thought it was an MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) device and therefore severely limited my options for transferring stuff back and forth. Well, only forth, I couldn't find any way to get the sample files off the player onto my PC - I didn't want them on the portable device but some were worth saving. The audio device that showed up in My Computer could be browsed, but I wasn't permitted to copy the files out. Accessing it in WMP10 was confusing, it doesn't seem to have any means of getting stuff off the player - delete, yes, but you can't copy back to the PC? I tried everything but Windows Media Player seems to be limited to a sort of sync process, you can't drag stuff off your player. If the file was never on your PC to start with it appears that you can't copy it out. That seems crazy but I haven't really used WMP10 so maybe that was user error, but it was annoying me and I don't like WMP anyway.

 

I tried the MP3 player in another PC which hasn't been tainted by WMP10. There it showed up as a USB drive, which is what I was wanted. I could copy the files off, and other files on, and generally do exactly what I wanted. Problem solved, but I wanted to know what was stopping me from doing that on the WMP10 machine.

 

On the original machine I rolled back WMP10 to WMP9, and then uninstalled WMP9 using the tricks you can find on the internet. WMP duly disappeared but as a solution to getting to my MP3 player it didn't work, now I couldn't access the MP3 player at all - not even an icon in My Computer. XP made the USB-connected chime and I got an 'autoplay' box showing an MTP device was connected (and no options), but the device just didn't appear in My Computer, no matter what I did.

 

Eventually I hit on the idea of looking in Device Manager to see what driver it was using. Turned out to be \windows\system32\drivers\wpdusb.sys - which gets installed with WMP10 and obviously isn't uninstalled when you roll back. This identifies the device as MTP-compliant, and locks out the UMS (normal USB disk device) drivers from installing it as a removable disk. So I 'uninstalled' the device in Device Manager, then renamed wpdusb.sys to something obscene (didn't want to delete it at that point just in case). The MP3 player now shows up as a USB drive, exactly as I wanted.

 

I'm posting this just in case any other WMP-phobe has similar issues with their MTP-compliant player. I spent a long time on Google trying to find out how to kill MTP support in Windows and couldn't find the answer anywhere. Of course, this is only useful if your device is able to support UMS as well as MTP, but most players can.

[McSkywalker]

Did you try to give "everyone" the read and write access manually in windows?

 

Edit: Most of the locked volumes can be reached by this :

 

The user needs to open "My Computer", Tools menu -> Folder Options

 

Then click on the View tab, in the scolling field there's an option saying "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)".

That option needs to be unticked .

 

Then right clicking and selecting "Properties" will give you a more detailed sharing tab. Under it, there's a permissions tab. If the user gives "everyone" full access, it becomes available to all users not only in network, but also on any other computer, including yours..

 

Just additional feedback.

[Metrogirl]

Did you try to give "everyone" the read and write access manually in windows?

 

Hi McSkywalker! I'm not sure that would have worked. The 'properties' tab for the device that shows up in My Computer after WMP10 is installed is very restricted. I don't remember what it said, but something to the effect of you couldn't do that. Also, the directory structure that shows up is quite different from the 'real' structure you see when you mount it as a disk drive so Microshaft clearly don't want you messing with your device, presumably to stop you circumventing DRM?

[McSkywalker]

Sorry I didn't post it fully.. And while I was editing my post, you posted that one. Thanks for sharing, anyway.

[richardyiu]

Just in case anyone is interested. For most of the generic mp3 player, there's an option under the setup menu to switch between MTP mode and normal USB mode. It is not neccessary to uninstall anything from Media Player 10. For the Windows Mobile phone, the driver that comes with ActiveSync does everything. You don't need to use Windows Media Player for transferring songs.

[Synaesthesia]

Well Done!

 

I replaced my firmware in my iRiver mp3 player to make it UMS instead of MTP(T-30). It's infinitely more usable than that WMP {censored}. I commend anyone elso who does the same! Even though my screen kinda messed up I still prefer it.

[Metrogirl]

Some more tips to get rid of garbage installed with WMP10. These are meant as hints to help you find and remove the stuff yourself - don't go typing this in unless you're very sure of what you're doing, since the actual UUIDs and code may be different on your system or with your player. These are commands typed at the DOS prompt, and if you need to be in a specific directory, it's shown as the prompt in the code below. Be very careful, I'm not responsible for you screwing up your system and I'm not going to answer hate mail. This worked for me, but apart from that you try any of this code at your own risk.

 

Get rid of WPD10 - (Windows Portable Devices for Media Player 10):

 

RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection C:\WINDOWS\RegisteredPackages\{981FB688-E76B-4246-987B-92083185B90A}\WPD10.inf,DefaultUninstall

 

Unregister WDF Usermode and kill the invisible service (the bit that trips MTP recognition):

 

regsvr32 /u C:\WINDOWS\RegisteredPackages\{981FB688-E76B-4246-987B-92083185B90A}\wpdmtp.dll

regsvr32 /u C:\WINDOWS\RegisteredPackages\{981FB688-E76B-4246-987B-92083185B90A}\wpdmtpus.dll

regsvr32 /u C:\WINDOWS\RegisteredPackages\{981FB688-E76B-4246-987B-92083185B90A}\wpdconns.dll

C:\WINDOWS\RegisteredPackages\{981FB688-E76B-4246-987B-92083185B90A}>sc delete umwdf

 

The specific device you've used with MTP will have a registry entry for its ID - you can delete it with an example like this (this is for the Insignia player, your player will have a different Vid/Pid sequence, obtainable from Device Manager when it's plugged in):

 

C:\WINDOWS\system32>reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\Vid_19ff&Pid_0303" /va /f

[KJY9]

Hmmm I've never had problems with Media player 9,10 or 11.

But then again I don't use media player, or any other software to load my MP3s.

I just treat it like it's a removable drive (my computer...copy...paste).

Are you using a Mac with XP installed, or a PC with XP installed?

I've never heard of this problem before?!?

[nicthommi]

Hi,

I'm having the same problem, and I followed all of the steps, but on the final step, which is the crucial one, b/c my MP3 player screen even SAYS MTP connected when it's plugged into my computer now, I'm given a message of "access denied" when I attempt to remove it's device ID from my computer. Anyone know how I get access so that I can make my computer stop viewing my MP3 player as an MTP device. So annoying...is it the sync process with Windows Media Player that causes this...is that why it works fine for a while (in my case, about 2 1/2 months) before this issues kicks in?

[road_gritter]

Hello,

 

An easier way than all the above is simply to change the driver for the device in question back to the standard USB hard disk driver...

 

 

Go to control panel -> administrative tools -> computer management

 

wait for the console to open

 

click on the 'Device Manager' icon in the left pane.

 

Find your device in the right pane (might be at the very bottom of the tree if MTP device).

 

Right click the device and select 'Update Driver...'

 

When asked if windows can connect to the Internet to look for drivers select the 'no' option.

Then when asked, click 'install from a list or a specific location'

Then when asked, click on 'Don't search I will choose the driver to install'

Then select the USB disk option from the list on the next screen and click 'next'.

 

From then on the device should show up as a USB disk and not a MTP device.

 

Hope that helps.

[RAF2]

Hello,

 

An easier way than all the above is simply to change the driver for the device in question back to the standard USB hard disk driver...

Go to control panel -> administrative tools -> computer management

 

wait for the console to open

 

click on the 'Device Manager' icon in the left pane.

 

Find your device in the right pane (might be at the very bottom of the tree if MTP device).

 

Right click the device and select 'Update Driver...'

 

When asked if windows can connect to the Internet to look for drivers select the 'no' option.

Then when asked, click 'install from a list or a specific location'

Then when asked, click on 'Don't search I will choose the driver to install'

Then select the USB disk option from the list on the next screen and click 'next'.

 

From then on the device should show up as a USB disk and not a MTP device.

 

Hope that helps.

 

 

Thank you so much, this one really solved this annoying MTP thingie! Thanks!