FIXED IT :) - Go to the device manager and find Portable Devices, right click on all the items in it and click disable. Restart (if you dont VMC will crash when you go to the folder). The best part is the drives are not disabled they work fine it just the stupid portable devises function that has now been disabled.

 

Fixed my own problem and very happy with it :))

 

Enjoy

 

 

Hi,

 

Does any one know how to stop Media Center displaying portable devices (USB keys, card readers etc).

Since installing SP1 my videos and pictures folders have 4 icons one for each card reader slot even when there are no cards in it. My usb key shows up as well. It doesnt ask if you want to show it and they are not listed in any monitored folders in WMP or VMC. They also dont show up in the portable devices list in WMP.

 

See image at: http://www.singingwolf.com.au/images/ebay-auctions/items/VMCSP1issue.jpg or below to see what it looks like.

 

Thanks

happens on mine too, though I've not found it irrating enough to anything about it. I think that it might actually come in useful.

Same here.  Just more of the same old crap that we have to put up with with Vista's monitored folders!!!

I wish I knew how to rid myself of these too. I'm sure they might be useful for some, but I just find them plain irritating when they appear despite nothing being connected. However, I find the same thing irritating in Windows generally. I can understand why MS have done this, but Macs are far better in this respect - they only show something when there is a drive/card/disk/whatever present on the channel. If there isn't then it remains invisible to the user. Ultimately, I do not need to know about D, E, F, G...unless there is something there.

good find, congratulations

Thanks for the fix I'll be giving this a try tonight as it is rather annoying.

 

Nice one!

This issue has now been fixed in the June 2008 Cumulative Update for Media Center and so the above workaround is no longer required. After installing the update the Portable Devices can be re-enabled in Device Manager and they will not appear in the Gallery.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950126

yup looks like that fixed it. Not exactly a show-stopper, but it was annoying.

Anybody else notice this isn't completely fixed, at least in Windows 7? It does seem to work if I plug in an empty USB flash memory stick - i.e. the stick does NOT appear in the Media Center Video library. But it fails if I insert an empty SD card into the SD card slot. The empty card DOES appear in the Video library in Media Center. Note that it is still possible to make the card disappear from the Video library by disabling the Portable Devices driver as discussed by other entries in this thread. One other thing to note: there are still issues with USB flash memory sticks. They DO appear in the Video library if they contain a media file of some sort (e.g. a WMV or MPG file). Remove the media file from the stick and it will no longer appear (even if there are other non-media files on it). The root of the problem here imho is that library locations (i.e. watch folders) do not deal with removable devices properly. The U/I for controlling which locations are included/excluded in the various libraries (Video, Pictures, Music) should explicitly allow the user to control whether removable drives appear in Media Center - and by default it should be set so that removable devices are excluded. Most users (I would guess) only want Media Center to show files on their system's non-removable (and network) resources, not flash drives, SD cards, etc. In the odd case where a user does want files on a removable drive to show up in Media Center, they should be able to go to the Library U/I and add the drive (temporarily) to the watch list.