Windows Media Player 11 Induces Baldness

Lately I've been pulling my hair out with Windows Media Player 11. I think I've found the fix so I thought I would pass this along.

I have an Audiovox SMT5600 windows smartphone. This is a certified plays for sure device so it should work seamlessly with WMP 11, right? Wrong! The SMT5600 is a Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition device, not a new Windows Mobile 5 unit but its still supposed to work.

All I want to do is auto sync content. Not even DRM'd content. These are items ripped from CD's I own. First, I had to find where you setup auto sync. Its under the drop down for the Sync Tab. You pick your device and then setup sync.

Manually syncing resulting in lots of duplicates and a really long sync process.

The setup sync process is easy enough, you just drag your playlists from one side to the other and there are lots of options. I wanted to sync to the 1gig mini-sd card on my phone. No luck. I just get a vague error. Googling the error, checking help, nothing worked.

Finally I removed the mini-sd card (it's behind the battery no less) and an plugged it in via a usb adapter to try setting up a sync directly to the card. It worked! But does this mean I have to take the battery out of my phone every time I want to sync now! NO! After syncing the first time directly, syncing via cable through the phone actually works! It's as if once WMP11 figured out it was a card, it recognizes it as a card from now on.

I'm much happier now, except for the syncs that stall partway through, the inability to correctly detect whether the card will be filled or not (it won't) and the occasional sync lockups. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss the regular builds that I get with iTunes. Yeah, 7.0 was a complete disaster but the fix came pretty quick. I haven't seen a new build of WMP 11 in forever.