WMP11 Performance poor compared to XP version

[Ploper001]

I have a dual boot laptop with XP Pro SP2 and Vista Ultimate (demo). Both have WMP11, and on XP it works great.

But on Vista, the when I open a playlist or song, WMP11 just seems to take a 5s break before actually playing the song/playlist. And also, every few minutes, there'll be a random few seconds where the music is really jittery. I thought it was to do with my external USB HDD not having Caching on, but it turns out it does it with music that's on the internal HDD too.


Any ideas as to what it's doing that's slowing it down that the XP version isn't?

 

[Ploper001]

Another thing I've noticed:

In WMP11, while on batteries, I put the PC to "sleep" in the middle of watching a DVD. When I woke it up, it had changed the DVD's language to German. Any attempt to change the language or get back to the DVD Menu would cause WMP11 to crash - and use upwards of 130MB of RAM. A reboot was required to finish the DVD.

I have never noticed behaviour like this in the XP version, although I've never exactly reproduced the above on it...

 

[linney]

What build or version is Vista Ultimate (demo)?

 

[Ploper001]

Tis the RTM one, Build 6000. I downloaded it for the 30-Day Trial Period, and it's quite good, except for WMP11

 

[smah]

This is no help but I find the opposite to be true - for me WMP11 works better on Vista than on XP (same hardware).

 

[linney]

Look at Task Manager and see if you can locate other processes using the CPU which may be interfering with the smooth running of WMP.

This is a XP thread but some of things mentioned may help in Vista.

Skippy Sound in Media Player
thread779-981636

You still have MsConfig in Vista which you can use to isolate the problem if it is being caused by other programs or services.