Playing MP3 files in Vista Beta 2 Media Center

Stop using Vista and move to Windows 7.

About an hour ago I blogged about the fact that the Media Center packaged with Vista Beta 2 couldn’t even play an MP3 file smoothly (along with a number of other issues). It turns out that there seems to be a memory leak in the eshell.exe process (the Media Center) UI which keeps spiralling it into an obscene footprint and chewing up most of my CPU cycles before eventually crashing. I’ve found a partial workaround that at least lets the sound work for a short amount of time during this destructive period.

From http://windowsconnected.com/blogs/kristans_blog/archive/2006/06/05/2992.aspx:

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click “Hardware and Sound”.
3. Click on “Audio Devices and Sound Themes”.
4. Double click on the playback device you have installed in your computer.
5. Navigate to the “Options” tab.
6. Under “Exclusive Mode”, check “Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device”.
7. Also check “Give exclusive mode applications priority”.
8. Press OK.

Now when you are rockin’ to your
favorite tunes in Windows Media Player while doing some heavy data
crunchin’, you won’t miss a beat!

Now to try and work out where the issue is coming from and how to fix it. I almost have a working system again!

technorati tags:windows, vista, mediacenter, mce, mp3, eshell.exe