Rebuilding the WMP Library; What do you lose?

I'm getting some strange effects in my WMP11 under XP; Tracks that play,
but you cannot find the album they are in. Nothing major, just a feeling
that there's something amiss.

If I rebuild the library, as documented at
http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html#medialibrary then how much will I lose?

Clearly I'd lose any playlists and auto playlists.
I'd keep the ratings, because I've chosen to save those in the files,
but I'd lose the play counts presumably.

Would the genres and sub-genres survive? When I change these, my backup
sees the files as changed, so something is stored in the files.

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

You won't lose any playlists or auto playlists, these are stored as
separate files, which WMP usually finds again when it scans all
monitored folders to refill the library.

The Genre and Subgenre fields are stored as tags in the actual music
files, so these will be restored. See
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/WMP/Backup.htm for a list of
fields that aren't stored in tags.

If you want to be sure that you don't lose anything, you could use the
Metadata Backup tool:
http://www.dalepreston.com/Blog/2007...ta-backup.html
Even this will not be able to restore the Date Added and Date Last
Played-fields, as they are read-only.

Regards

--
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk

Swifty wrote:
> I'm getting some strange effects in my WMP11 under XP; Tracks that play,
> but you cannot find the album they are in. Nothing major, just a feeling
> that there's something amiss.
>
> If I rebuild the library, as documented at
> http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html#medialibrary then how much will I lose?
>
> Clearly I'd lose any playlists and auto playlists.
> I'd keep the ratings, because I've chosen to save those in the files,
> but I'd lose the play counts presumably.
>
> Would the genres and sub-genres survive? When I change these, my backup
> sees the files as changed, so something is stored in the files.
>

Tim De Baets wrote:
> If you want to be sure that you don't lose anything, you could use the
> Metadata Backup tool:
> http://www.dalepreston.com/Blog/2007...ta-backup.html
>
> Even this will not be able to restore the Date Added and Date Last
> Played-fields, as they are read-only.

I've wondered about fields like that; you can't edit them in the WMP UI
(like the play count).

I have a few simple programs that use OLE to access the database
directly. I've never tried any updates; I use it just to extract a
digest of my albums for use on a website. Maybe I should try some
updates to see which fields I can change?

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk

Swifty wrote:
> I've wondered about fields like that; you can't edit them in the WMP UI
> (like the play count).

Play count can't be edited in the UI, but doesn't seem to be a read-only
attribute. It can usually be set programmatically.

> I have a few simple programs that use OLE to access the database
> directly. I've never tried any updates; I use it just to extract a
> digest of my albums for use on a website. Maybe I should try some
> updates to see which fields I can change?

You could (there's an isReadOnlyItem-method in the WMP SDK), but I don't
really see the point. The fact that a field is read-only doesn't
necessarily mean that it's not stored in the music file. You can use
WMP's Attribute Reference to check whether a field is stored in the
music file, in the library, or both:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.85%29.aspx

Regards

--
Tim De Baets
http://www.bm-productions.tk

Tim De Baets wrote:
> You can use WMP's Attribute Reference to check whether a field is
> stored in the music file, in the library, or both:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...8VS.85%29.aspx

That's a really handy reference, thanks!

--
Steve Swift
http://www.swiftys.org.uk/swifty.html
http://www.ringers.org.uk