Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Yet another issue with the new Windows that has taken up far too much of my time

I decided that I wanted to play some music on the laptop while I was folding laundry, and I didn't have any music on it, so I transferred some from my phone into a music folder. But alas, neither Windows Media Player nor the Microsoft Music application could find my music, and following the directions for adding the folder to the music library either didn't bring up the expected dialogue box or simply put things into a loop where I got thrown out of the program. I have been trying to figure this out for well over two hours, and I've missed 'Sherlock', which I am fortunately recording, because I got so into this issue and trying to resolve it. Turns out the Windows 8.1 upgrade totally corrupted the libraries on my computer, and on those of others. In fact, if you try to choose one of the libraries, such as Documents or Music, it says something to the extent of it's no longer operating and can be safely removed. Because of this, the programs couldn't find anything in the libraries. My computer wasn't even showing the Libraries folder anymore, so this is what I did:
  1. If it's not showing up in the Explorer sidebar, go to the charms by pointing the mouse to the lower right corner and use the search icon to bring up a search box. Look for Libraries. That will bring up the folder.
  2. Right-click on the Music folder and delete it. For that matter, you can do that to any of the others.
  3. Right-click on the empty space in the Libraries folder and add a new Library, calling it Music.
  4. Open Windows Media Player.
  5. Click 'Organize' on the menu.
  6. Click 'Manage libraries'.
  7. Choose 'Music'.
  8. The program will ask you which folder you want to add to the library, so choose the one your music is in (mine is, of course, called 'Music'), and the program will populate the albums you have in that folder into the music library. From there you can use Windows Media Player any way you normally would. If you have videos or pictures you want to use in that program, you can do the same thing, just delete and create the Video or Pictures libraries.
I'm posting this here in case it's helpful. 'Sherlock' is over in 10 minutes. My hand washables are hung up to dry in the shower. THe rest of the laundry can wait till tomorrow. I'm going on to bed, and I'll just listen to music from my phone next to the bed (I have a dock that routes through a boom box there). Good night.

PS This never happened on my desktop for some reason. I find it interesting that although I have Windows 8.1 running on both computers, there are differences. The desktop was upgraded from Windows 7 to 8 and then 8.1. The laptop came with Windows 8 and then was upgraded to 8.1. When I upgraded the desktop from 7 to 8, I suddenly couldn't install my National Graphic DVDs at all, even though they ran fine on the laptop, which had never had Window 7. I find that interesting. Fortunately, when I went up to 8.1 the desktop finally allowed the installation. :)

No comments: