WARNING: Windows Media Player Caught Stealing Machine Resources Allocated to Skyrim.
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I writing this to warn everyone about a problem which affects Skyrim and seems to me to be caused by some of Windows Media Player's more parasitic behaviors.
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This last week, during testing, I noticed the game performance stall quite suddenly and severely with attendant and ongoing hard drive access which could not be explained by any of the programs running in the foreground. In this case, I was not running the Creation Kit in tandem with the game, nor was I making any attempt to stress test the system. Moreover, this is not the first time something, fired up by the operating system, had destabilized the game during low-stress testing.
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When I opened the task manager I caught Windows Media Player, red-handed, running a "network synchronization" routine which had been initiated while I was in-game and without my express consent. It is worth pointing out that Windows Media Player was using resources that had only just been allocated to Skyrim and, no less, while Skyrim was still in use and still had the focus. Consequently, Skyrim started experiencing severe difficulties because of this uninvited theft of allocated machine resources (be they allocated CPU registers, allocated cache or allocated memory). Given that I never watch DVDs on this system, Windows Media Player never has any reason to run on this particular system - unless it is not a "media player" but something else dishonestly labelled as a "media player". Take your pick. Either way it's certainly not above board.
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Since disabling Windows Media Player, and all it's associated services, this particular problem has not recurred on this system. I hear that Microsoft does not allow Windows Media Player to be uninstalled, and I am wondering if, perhaps, someone could explain to me what happened to the court ruling expressly ordering Microsoft to ensure that all users must be able to uninstall such "features" (e.g. internet Explorer) if they so choose...?
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I suspect that a lot of valuable time expended by a great many people, including myself, has been wasted by this particular problem so, what am I to say?
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Shame shame shame, Microsoft.
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And for those of us chasing our tails over 'Skyrim' bugs, some of which, evidently, do not originate in the game - disabling Windows Media Player (and all its associated services) during testing might bring some sanity to the bug-hunt.

I use msconfig to turn off most of my start-up apps too. I also turn off auto-update, or at least check the "ask me" option, in any program that has it available. You also may want to check out one of the websites that discuss Windows Services and decide which ones you can do without...for instance, if you're not on a LAN, there are a couple of services flagged Automatic that can be disabled.

Every little bit helps.

You can kill WMP via "Programs & Features" > "Turn Windows Features on or off" > "Media Features" > "Windows Media Player".

Edit: At least one can w/ Win7

Many of these applications disguise themselves as algorithms in passive dynamic link libraries - which are invoked by operating system, in accordance with registry settings, as "services".
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These services can be a bit more complicated to gain control of and I also find myself going through:
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Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services
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and that's where I excluded the WMP services along with a several redundant remote access services (well, maybe not redundant to hackers). I also found an undescribed "Ati" service which is not amenable to being stopped - even though my current graphics card is nVidia. I've just disabled the "Ati" service, so we'll see what fireworks ensue when I reboot the system...

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I'm using Vistax64 and can find no sign of "Media Features" or "Windows Media Player" under "Programs & Features" > "Turn Windows Features on or off" - but maybe that's because I've already "disabled" the underlying services....?

And your antivirus didn't catch this?!?

Seriously though, are you sure you're not running into something easily explained? Have you checked to be sure Vista didn't schedule a task to regularly call up WMP to do a network sync? Vista is well known for having mountains of wasteful processes running. Many of which have been tamed by Windows 7.

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Maybe it did. Imagine: AVG catches the 'Vista' virus, which promptly roots AVG so that it won't report 'Vista' as a virus in the first place (and that is what it really means to be 'rooted')!
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In any case my other system is Deviant, oops, I mean Debian - just in case the bit-pickers make a comeback on the hacking scene and then having a platform with screws loose in all the right places will be the only way to keep them out - unless you can convince Honeywell to make a comeback.
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For now, the task schedule is nailed down nicely, thank you http://www.gamesas.com/user/176330-arthmoor/ for suggesting this - no sign of Windows Media Player and the only really annoying recurring task I can find is the disk defragmenter, which I scheduled myself - with good reason. That bizarre "Ati External Event" service went down on the restart without so much as a whimper. I've also uninstalled everything by Adobe because their EULA admits to allowing client side scripting such as Javascript to be run through a Portable DOCUMENT Format without any mention of Windows browser security compliance, whatsoever. In my systems, all client-side scripting is banned except for sites explicitly white-listed by me - and that takes care of those pathetic little script-kiddies.

Have you ever used an ATI card in the past? That service is part of the ATI driver, but is generally quite safe to disable and does drain resources from the system while gaming. If you're using nVidia now, it seems like you have some leftover junk to clean out.

Yes, software has dependencies in Windows those are typically DLL files. They allow reuse of code.
And other non-WMP components have dependencies to WMP, but the client application can be disabled. Which is the equivalent of uninstalling of a third party application.


[deleted]

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One word:
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Empiricism.
If it can be verified, there is no reason to believe anything more complicated than that it is true. This empiricism has proven to be our most reliable connection to reality, and yet we have a remarkable history of talking ourselves out of this best of all connections to reality by allowing our faith in "esteemed" persons to rob us of healthy doubt when those esteemed persons make the very human error of jumping to conclusions that either have not been verified or cannot be verified.

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Well there is that teensy-eensy-weensy distinction between "uninstalling" and simply "disabling" a program - which is rather big considering that an uninstalled application is no longer taking up space in the system - and just might be why we get it from the horse's mouth that http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-windows_programs/how-do-i-uninstall-windows-media-player-in-windows/0e54ed88-6161-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5 and the best we can do is disable it.

A number of wildly off topic comments have been deleted.

If you have nothing constructive to add concerning the OP's windows media player question, please refrain from posting in this thread.