I just reformatted my hard drive (which I have done many, many times before) and this time Windows Media Player insists on starting every time the system boots. I very carefully removed it from anything that says Startup, and eventually even deleted the program, but when I reinstalled Media Player 11, there it was again at bootup. Can anyone tell me why this is happening and what I can do about it?

JRM

It occurred to me to examine Task Manager/Processes while the Windows Media Player display was up and see exactly what was running. I found wmplayer.exe, and when I ended that the display disappeared. I'm no closer to solving the problem, though, since I still cannot find what in my bootup is executing that file. I hope this will help someone to point me to the right place. Funny, this never happened before in dozens of reformats (for myself and others).

Using the AutoRuns program suggested by DigeratiPrime, I noticed a Default file in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. This is a default (invalid) Windows Media Player playlist, so I deleted it. But when I rebooted, WMP came right back, and I find that that same useless file has been replaced. So now the question is: what puts that useless file into my All Users Startup folder?

Use AutoRuns and view the entries in the 'Logon' tab to see (almost?) all possible startup locations.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb963902.aspx

Note that in this screenshot below 'Include Empty Locations' is not enabled.