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"Play All" link in the Common Tasks does not work

Published: May 27, 2005
Updated  : Mar 05, 2007
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Symptom

The Common Tasks pane for Music and video folders contains a Play all link. Clicking this option should open your default Player and queue up all the songs (supported file types) in the folder and play them automatically. In some cases, nothing may happen when you click the Play all link. This article describes how to troubleshoot the problem.

Cause

This happens due to one of the following reasons:

  1. Incorrect file association settings
  2. A third-party shell is extension blocking the Play all feature

Resolution

For Case 1:    You can fix the file association settings by using this command. Click Start, Run and type:

regsvr32 wmpshell.dll

And then run this command:

%Systemroot%\INF\unregmp2.exe /SetWMPAsDefault

Note that this fixes the file associations, and sets Windows Media Player as the default handler for media file types.

For Case 2:    You can isolate the problem using ShellExView. Full instructions are available in this page. Follow the steps under Method 2 in that page. Here are some instances where third-party shell extensions caused the problem:

PowerISO | Object Edit | Daemon Tools | Tauscan (Anti-Trojan) | ACDSee 7.0 | AVG 6.0 | MoveTo

Related article

Error Message "Unable to Find Playable File" in Windows Media Player for Windows XP