Fix wmpnetwk.exe In Windows 7
So I asked a friend to get Windows 7 and the first complaint was that wmpnetwk.exe is taking too much system resources. In some cases the resource consumption goes up to 90%. According to Microsoft, this was a small bug in RTM release but should not happen in the official public release.
To all those who don’t know, wmpnetwk.exe is a process of Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. Hit Ctrl+Shift+Esc and head over to the Processes tab, you will find this network service taking between 5Mb-10Mb of memory.
If wmpnetwk.exe is taking a lot of system resources, it probably means something is wrong. The best way to get rid of this problem is to disable this service once and for all.
Note: This service will be required if you want to share media or stream it over the network using Windows Media Player. Since I am a VLC Player geek, Windows Media Player does not appeal to me.
There are many people who need this service, so here is a quick fix; stop the service, change startup type to manual, restart the computer, and then change the startup type to automatic. I have elaborated these steps below.
Click Start, type services.msc in Start Search and hit Enter. Now search for Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service from the list, right-click it, and hit Stop.
It will take some time to stop the service. Once done, right-click this service again and select Properties. Change the Startup type to Manual and restart the computer.
Once the computer is restarted, head back to the Properties once again and change the Startup Type to Automatic. The problem should be resolved by now!
Extra Note: This problem is effecting a very small number of users only and is not something Microsoft is planning to resolve in the upcoming service pack. If you have never used Windows Media Player and use 3rd party players, such as, VLC, then you can always disable this service to save system resources.
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IT’S “AFFECT”
“AFFECT” IS THE VERB 99% OF THE TIME
TWMP NETWORK IS NOT BRINGING ABOUT PEOPLE
IT IS AFFECTING PEOPLE
A WINDOWS SERVICE CANNOT MAKE A PERSON
SEE WHAT YOU’VE MADE ME THINK ABOUT
At first it just restarted itself after a while, then I restarted my computer after I disabled the whole damned process. So far, so good.
Worked like a charm!!!! Thank You so much!!! The only thing is I got an error 1053 when trying to stop it but put in manual mode and problem seems to have been fixed..
Thanks! This was using almost all of my cpu. Not anymore!
Thanks a lot, I never new why my hard drive was working so hard. I found that process and I was researching on the net. I follow the suggestion of couple of guy here and works, Perfect. My computer was getting so hot and not its working so smooth. Thank you all.
Nope, doesn’t work. Always restarts itself.
I’ve never joined homegroup and it keeps appearing started after i restart please someone help!!
AWESOME!!!!!!!!! Went from like 100% down to 17%. I disabled all the Windows Media Player linked items of the service list {I have Media Jukebox as a Media Player which works like a dream if you have a large music collection}…THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!
You saved me from having to buy more RAM 😀 and for my other Windows 7 computers! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Evidence…
Norton says this process is taking up 2,449MB of my memory to run! WTF!
getting error 1053, can NOT stop bluddy program !!
Thanks for the tip. It worked a treat.
 Same issue, but my resolution seemed to be excluding my large database of old radio shows from music files it takes its inventory from.
I configured this through Windows Media Player options.
Thank god for this article. I swear this thing has been eating up all my memory and making it impossible to do anything! My laptop is a one year old Sony Vaio with the highest amount of memory and RAM I could get at the time, so it was extremely frustrating having it freeze on me. Now that I know it’s a Windows Media Player process that’s screwing me over, I can disable it and get on with my life.
for me it uses 4gb ram :/
Thank you so much for the help. I had this problem after I added my xbox as a media center extender to play some music. It boosted my idle memory usage from 20% to almost 80% and the physical memory at 100! I’ve set the service to disabled, I don’t need this thing slowing my computer just because I am lazy and want to hear music out of my tv.Â
Thank you for the fix; even though it doesn’t totally fix the problem. The service restarts after you reset it to automatic and restart the computer. I said the Hell with it and just left it turned off and manual. The customer will never use this service anyway.
Thank you for the fix; even though it doesn’t totally fix the problem. The service restarts after you reset it to automatic and restart the computer. I said the Hell with it and just left it turned off and manual. The customer will never use this service anyway.
i’m not sure why this would be a permanent fix if you are going back to set the service to start automatically.
i’m not sure why this would be a permanent fix if you are going back to set the service to start automatically.
THAN YOU VERY MUCH IT SOLVED MY PROBLEM.MY LAPTOP RAM CONSUMPTION GOES TO 100%.I TRIED ALL MEANSÂ BUT ALL ARE FAILED.AFTER APPLYING YOUR TIP RAM USAGE COMES DOWN TO 40%.KEEP IT UP
thanks, that was really grinding my gearsÂ
With everything updated (11-4-11) on a legit copy of W7 SP1 x64 it is maxing out 1 cpu core and and consuming almost 2.5GB of ram.Â
Ok… i got it… i ended up going through msconfig and disabled it under services there.
thanks for the help
Well, i got the service to stop, and yes it took a long time, but when i go to th e properties and attempt to change the “startup type” I can’t do anything because the buttons are grayed out (can’t click). At the very bottom there is a Start Parameters box that i can type into….. don’t know what i would type or if that helps but…. can i get a little help please
Thank you for the INFO! It really worked. I am so relieved. It was giving me headaches big time!
Wow- Thanks so much for figuring this fix out. When Everything about my PC is slow it really screws up my productivity and profitability. my Machine has been slow for 5 days now and I was bumming big time- trying all kinds of scans, and fixes and uninstalling programs…. wondering if I should do a system restore and about ready to do it , Thanks for put this up, I owe you One!
hey man thanx a lot!!
i cant believe i randomly found this website! after a long day of searching, i typed the name of this bad file on a search engine and found the simplest solution to an annoying problem ever. thank you addictivetips.com, you’ll be on my favorites list.
Thanks a ton! I feel like a hacker now. I’m Tron.
This worked AMAZING!!! It was using 99% of my RAM before. I just got this new laptop and i told my parents it was running slow and they said i was just being ungrateful but now seeing there was an actual error was a relief. Thanks so much this was EXTREMELY helpful 🙂
Wow !! amazing and thanks :D. This problem had been troubling me for almost a year and wmpnetwk had been using 2gb of my 3gb ram :/, now it runs like new 🙂
thanks a lot, it used phy mem 99%
now it keeps cool
thnks. simple to the point saved so much time for me.
This solution helped me only temporarily. I had been messing with Windows Media Center in Windows 7 when I got this problem. After shutting it off in Control Panel, rebooting, then turning it on again, I turned back to the point of no problem.
Thanks man I reallly needed it XD
Nice!!! Thank U..!!! Since I installed Se7en in to my netbook, this muthafuckar wmpnetwk.exe is killing my patience… Now, my netbook is running like hell-fast… LOL Thank U!!! 😉 🙂
It frustrated me for sure a half year now. And now its over!!!
Thank you very much for this great HELP!
Disabled and it looks like it has worked. Thanks. It had been frustrating me for weeks, because I have a high spec laptop and it made it work like an antique computer.
Client laptop 2.5gb out of 3gb ram; WMP libraries included root drives (C, D) and was trying to index them. Removed them from the library in WMP = fixed.
Tried the fix, it worked…went from 67% down to 23% until I opened the performance monitor. Then it jumped back up to around 70% ?? Seems the default is (delayed automatic). Is there any way to install a shortcut on the desktop to go from auto to manual? That would be cool cause I need the service occasionally.
Thank you very much my man. Worked a treat!!
Now I got the Error 1053 as well. Don’t know why. But I disabled it and bobs your uncle!!
And also thanks to prankstare. I also had a look at the root and that also seemed to help.
Thanks you kind sirs.
Doesn’t work for me. Something keeps launching it when I reboot anyway unless I set it to “Disable.” I’d like to fix it because I use WMP’s DLNA from time to time. Even with it disabled, various other processes are using 4-22% of my CPU resources which doesn’t seem normal (CPU can’t idle much).
thanx it worked……
Hey people,
I use Windows Media Center to share video streaming with my Xbox 360 and I was having the same kind of problem. After doing some pretty hard research, I’ve found out that the process was taking a lot of resources because I didn’t index the libraries correctly (I just selected root C:\ and that was hogging the entire system).
Try that and see if it helps as well.
Me too. Thanks! Without people such as yourself who sleuth down and document how a process name is actually related to, in this case, a service of marginal interest to most people, how would we ever find out?
Actually, I think I saw the same thing as Bob above, who reported that somehow W7 changed an explicit setting of Manual start to Delayed Automatic. Wouldn’t swear to it myself, and I can’t be arsed to fart around with this headache any further, but if that’s indeed the case, that’s a double-ding to Microsoft since their services control panel would separately be buggy, too. Anyway, I’m trying completely disabled now.
Judging by the dozens of reports of this above — which we can safely assume represents thousands and thousands of other occurrences out there — the statement in your ‘extra note’ that this is a problem affecting a small number of users ranks somewhere on the spectrum between wishful thinking and delusion on Microsoft’s part. (Or possibly their definition of ‘small’ differs from mine.) What do less technical people do when this happens?
Thanks for the fix. I’ve noticed 50% memory consumption since I bought this computer (HP Pavilion dv7 initially Vista now Windows 7, purchased almost 1 1/2 years ago). It wasn’t until I opened task manager and clicked on the Resource Monitor button under Performance tab that I saw wmpnetwk.exe was eating up all my resources. (This was after spending $160 to up the RAM from 4G to 8G, laptop memory isn’t cheap.) Thanks Nakodari. Note to those who get Error 1053. I had the same problem. I just opened task manager and under processes closed wmpnetwk.exe and it then allowed me to stop it using services.msc. Now after putting in a SSD drive for start up/the OS and the RAM upgrade, this puppy screams (all in a good way)
OMG =D I love you ! I have 70% of my CPU left after disabling this! I can now horde 30 tabs, CS5(running 6 RAW files) spotify, bbci player and adobe light room all running and working with out grazing 40% . I wanted to see if it really fixed the problem =]
This problem only became apparent a month or so ago when playing any video would steal 100% of my CPU and then crash.
Thanks =:-)
BTW it didnt matter how much RAM you have because it goes off of what is available and eats it for a snack. I know cause thats what it did to me.
Windows 7 Pro
ASUS mb AMD Phenom II X6
6GB RAM
OMG I was wondering if I was the only one who had this problem and I am glad i wasnt. it was burning up an even more extreme amount of resources on my pc. I was down to 70 mb ram from
6GB! WTF Microsoft?
Let me just say how fantastic this fix is. I was literally pulling my hair out after the system had slowed to just about a crawl, especially when running high demanding apps. Now everything is smoothly and I probably shouldnt have bought the extra ram!
If you get the problem Error 1053, you need to go into sharing settings and turn off streaming, I got the same problem but after turning it off, I could then stop the service, but essentially turning off streaming solves the problem anyway.
I tried with the procedure u explained above but couldn’t succeed , and got the problem
Could not stop the Windows service name service on Local Computer.
Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
plz can u help me in this regard.
I put it on manual, restarted; it was back to automatic (with delay). So I disabled it. I assume that this may only be a problem if you have a home network with more than one computer sharing files? If so, I have shared a common folder, so don’t need to have Media Player nosing around other folders on other computers anyway! Sad part is that for most people, they would take their computer into a repair shop for this or download one of those malicious software offers from late night tv that would not fix the problem but rip them off. You’d think someone at Microsoft would think of these user issues, but hey, they never have before so why start now?
it took me 2 months to find this out, my lap top works like new
from 100% cpu usage down to 5%
thanks a lot great work keep it up
Yay!!! Thanks SO much…. this was doing my head in…
btw, this is one possible solution for those people who have scoured the internet looking for reasons why they cannot eject their external hard drives.
Thanks you a lot you help so much!
This answer is great providing you dont stream media such as X-BOX or other media devices.
If that is the case then this kills the experience totally !
I found help on another site that said it was caused by WMP trying to read a bad AVI file.
I found the last file I got and deleted it and “hey presto” all fixed and no need to stop WMP !!
It now runs only as needed and does not take up all the CPU time anymore !!!
Thanks man!! I’ve had great speed and efficiency troubles.
But you made my day…..
Recently, was taking 6gb of memory (I have 8gb total) and had almost 700gb of I/O reads (this seems to be the total of the process when displayed in task manager since you first booted your machine?) even though there is no one else on my network, and no other computers connected (according to a DHCP list) and I have less than 5gb of video on my machine, none of it worth hacking into remotely through a router, firewall, macafee, and ad-aware. I’ve never streamed video to any other devices on my network. Additionally, according to TCPView it wasn’t connected to anything externally.
Microsoft not planning to fix? Well, just another reason never to use the Windows Media Player (which only supports like 4 total file formats).
Never had a problem with it before, but I suspect either due to Windows update or horrible programming, it crashed somewhere.
Thanks ever so much. Your resolution worked perfectly
I figured this out after having the same issue. Rather than disabling. Reduce the number of files in your homegroup. If WMP is trying to sync too many files or find files which have been deleted it will not stop using your system resource. Just include the files you really want to share in your homegroup and check that those listed in WMP are still on your system.
Thanx a lot… Saved me from a sever head-ache…. Such a relief… from such a big problem…. Microsoft should solve this major issue… atleast some one should … !!!
Thanx a million… !!!
I have had this issue for about a month now, extremely frustrating and i have done what you guys have said. The issues are that it does it now every time i start up my comp. Dragging my ram down
Awesome! I don’t need this crap hoarding 50% of my CPU
hi having trouble stopping the service came up with error 1053: The service did not repond to the start or control request in a timely fashion. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
ok the service was on delayed start up so a changed it to manual before it had a chance to start then restarted but that didn’t work so i disabled it and everything seems to be back to normal thank so much for your help!
yeah, disable is what i had to do or it would keep cutting itself back on.
I changed it to manual and it would start itself randomly, so I just disabled it. I can’t believe Windows doesn’t consider this a problem!
This doesn’t work. After restarting, I go to the services and it shows wmpnetwk.exe as started. Is there another way or something I am missing for me to stop wmpnetwk.exe because mine is running at 50 cpu and 900,000K
It worked! It worked! It was weird. Now my computer is back to normal after 2 days!!!
I don’t understand why Microsoft is ruining their name by this crap. It costed me a week to find out the problem. Unbelievable. Anyway thanks I disable Windows Media Player completely.
all i can say is thank you… that was such a pain!!! i have 8gb of memory, and it was using half!!!
Awesome! Performs like new! You made my month!
Thank you SO much! This helped a lot. It was using around 70% of my computer’s “Used Physical Memory,” whatever that is. haha.
But thanks a lot!
Thanks this helped alot. I just decided to Disable it. Would that effect anything on my system now?