Scott Hanselman

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SOLVED: Windows Media Sharing gets SLOW after installing Zune

January 08, 2007 Comment on this post [7] Posted in Musings
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We came back from Tanzania with over three gigs of photos and looked forward to having friends and family over to watch slideshows. We usually run the slide show on the Xbox360 talking to my main PC running Windows Media Sharing Service.

I chose to setup our home network using wired 100Mbs Ethernet, rather than wireless as our main "backbone" as I find even the fastest wireless totally unacceptable for large file transfers. Small things like the ReplayTV and a few other appliances are wireless, but every room is has plates in the wall with at least two drops, and there's a formal wiring closet in our linen closet with a punchdown block so I can rewire the house. Maybe one day I'll post on all this.

Anyway, back to the point. The pictures are 7.2 megapixels so they are 4-6 meg JPEGs depending. For last year the Xbox360 has been able to pull down a picture in less than 3 seconds, but just this last week it's taken 10-20 seconds, sometimes longer. Of course, this has significantly cramped our slide-showing style.

I'm a firm believer, when debugging, that something must have changed. So I sat down and puzzled on what's changed on my machine.

Then I realized that the only thing that changed was the addition of the Zune. I puzzled when I installed the Zune why it'd need another 'Sharing Service' - It installs the Zune Network Sharing Service. I didn't think too much about it, but I remember wondering Why do we need another uPnP service? Is the Zune THAT different that it can't just talk to the regular Windows Media Sharing Service.

Long story short, I ran "services.msc" on my Windows Vista machine and set the Zune Network Sharing Service to Manual, and stopped it. Lo and behold, the Xbox360 suddenly could pull images down as fast as before. Your mileage may vary, but if you have a Zune, you might consider just disabling that service all together. It certainly has a problem with the Xbox, or the Xbox has a problem when it sees two seemingly identical uPnp servers on the same machine.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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Comment on this post [7]
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January 08, 2007 14:57
Scott, not sure what resolution your tv runs at, but even at 1080p, isn't the resolution of your pictures going to be massive compared to what your tv can display? So if you resized all youe pics to something nearer to the resolution of your tv, the pictures should be much smaller in file size, and display almost instantly. Or have I overlooked something?
AndyToo
January 08, 2007 15:37
I, for one, would be interested in blog post about the cabling in your house.
cometbill
January 08, 2007 16:50
I would also like to see a blog post on the cabling in your house. What you using and what you would change if you have to do it again. Thanks. :)
lordhits
January 08, 2007 19:58
One more reason on the long list of many to not buy a Zune. I'm curious why you chose it over Creative or IPod. Well, I understand not buying an IPod but why a Zune? I've heard nothing but bad things about it. Does it really not work with Win Media Player? That alone is a deal killer, if you ask me.

I'm also curious about the cabling in your house. :-)
Scotch Drinker
January 08, 2007 21:40
Scotch - I didn't buy the Zune, it was a gift. I bought an iPod Video.
Scott Hanselman
January 09, 2007 4:17
Get an iMac and all things are good.
Robert
January 09, 2007 13:21
I'm running a Windows Vista RC1 Ultimate with Media Centen, and i have a Xbox360 conected to my home network to play and share music and movies.I like to use Process Explorer and i like to watch what process are doing. There is service called Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service located in C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmpnetwk.exe, and when i tried inside my Xbox360 to listen music or view photos always the prosses it's going to waste cpu time and read and write a lot. This cause computer running slow and xbox sharing running slow too, and try to restart service or stopped.
Luis Guerrero

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.