Recently I had a very weired problem on my Microsoft Windows XP machine. I inserted an audio CD in CD player, Windows Media player will launch the CD but the application user interface minimized and will not restore when I clicked on "Restore" option in the menu in tool bar on bottom of my screen.

Then I started looking around, searching in newsgroups or help web site. There were all kind of solutions suggested like reinstall Media Player, Restart Machine, Clicking on Resote menu option in tool bar and so on. I tried every single suggestion that was out there. Nothing helped. Thats when I started thinking from a developer's prospective and thinking what will I do If I build this application. And first thing that came to mind was registry. And I thought of only one solution to fix this problem. And that was to nuke Windows Media Player application's settings in my user profile. And that worked perfectly. So here are the steps that I followed. Before you embark on this solution, standard warning about playing with registry is in order.

Modifying any registry entries directly can create some side effects or may make the application unusable. So be careful with this approach. If you are not sure, ask for help from some person who knows about registry setting changes.

Steps:

• Close Windows Media Player application. Since you do not have access to UI, it will have to done by right clicking on the application in task bar and clicking on "Close" menu option as show in above image.
• From Start menu launch registry editor by tping "Regedit" in "Run" as show in following images

• Now you have registry editor in front of you. Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Media Player" node in registry editor.
• You will lot of entries under this node. Right click on the root node "Media Player". You will "Delete" menu option. Click on that. Now your profile for Windows Media Player has been deleted.

• Close registry editor and start Windows Media Player.