Access to the specified device, path, or file is denied ????

[haw]

Access to the specified device, path, or file is denied.
I just recently started having this strange error message pop up whenver I insert a DVD into my drive. The error message is in a pop-up dialog box that says "desktop" on the title bar.

Google searching the web yields advice such as: this error message occurs when a shortcut on your desktop includes spaces in the path name but is not enclosed in double quotes. Well, I've deleted the shortcuts to software I thought might be related to DVD playing, burning, etc. -- still have the problem.

It just started happening after I installed Windows Media Player 9. I have not yet uninstalled WMP9 (probably my next step, though) ... but that's my leading suspect right now. Just thought I'd check here and see if anyone has had / heard of / knows a resolution to this problem?

It's rather strange ... I have only one drive on my PC: Sony DRU-500AX, which is both CD burner and DVD burner. I don't get the error message if I insert a CD -- only if I insert a DVD. And the DVD must have a movie burned on it -- if it's a blank, unformatted disk I get no error message. Or if it's a "data" DVD disk (DLA formatted) I get no error -- ONLY if the disk has been burned as a movie do I get the message.

And when the pop-up happens, it frequently locks up my Windows Explorer program (WINDOWS Explorer -- NOT I.E.!!), which is usually open. This requires me to kill the Explorer task, and sometimes even reboot to get things back to normal (if I reboot with the disk in the drive, I get no error message and everything works fine ... at least, until I open/close the drive).

It's very strange and I want to resolve the issue! Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

btw: I don't think it's a virus. I keep Norton up to date (it currently does not detect anything) and am very careful about this sort of thing. I also have no spyware or other undesirable software on my PC (other than plug-ins etc. that WMP may have introduced without my knowledge).

Thanks!

[Jayhawk]

It sounds like Media Player 9 has messed up your file associations or has somehow intergrated itself into your autoplay settings. I don't have media player 9 installed so can't test the theory but I'm pretty sure it's related.

Possibly there are configuration settings in MP 9 that could help. I'll bet turning off autoplay for dvd media would solve it. Do you use MP9 to play DVD's.

[haw]

No, I use PowerDVD to play DVDs on my PC.

Before installing WMP9 I had sometimes used WMP7.1, though, to play MPG files. In fact, I think that the MPG (MPEG, etc.) extension would have been associated with Media Player 7.1 before I installed v9.

After this problem started, I tried completely removing ANY application from association with the MPG extension ... that didn't affect anything (still had the problem). But I think you're advice about disabling autoplay is right on the mark because . . .

I have Norton Utilities on my PC. Normally just use it for antivirus, but I just ran the Windoctor utility to see what it might say. It said I had several problems like invalid file references (uninstalled software leaving an entry in registry or something), invalid shortcuts, etc. I told it to "fix all" and now my problem seems to have gone away.

I see that now not only do my MPG and MPEG extensions have no application associated with them ... but also several more MP_ extensions (where _ is one of several different letters) have been changed so that they have no app associated with them. They all say they are "movie clip" types ... but there's no "opens with" app specified. So now when I insert a DVD into my drive, I just get a (windows_ explorer-type window that shows me what's on the disk (AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS subdirectories). This suits me just fine and I think I'll leave it as is. I suppose I could go back and associate PowerDVD with all these file types if I wanted to auotplay DVDs ... but I'm not gonna worry about it right now.

So I don't know _exactly_ what caused the problem, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with installing WMP9!