WMP causing excessive disk activity

I rarely use WMP but loaded it just now (to check whether the streaming settings were OK, as I need them for streaming videos from my PC HD to my smart TV). But as soon as WMP started, my CPU activity shot up, and my external USB HDs became hyperactive. On checking Win 10 TM I see most of the activity seems to be due to WUDFHost.exe.

As soon as I exit WMP, the excessive activity ceases.

Never had this behaviour on previous occasions.

In relatively non-technical term, can anyone give me some insight into what is going on please?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

In WMP, please go to Tools - Options - Devices (press Ctrl+M if you don't see the Tools menu). Double-click each USB drive in the list and tick or untick Create folder hierarchy on device, then click OK.

Changing this or any other setting in Sync Options should cause WMP to create a WMPInfo.xml file in the root of the drive. The presence of such a file should prevent WMP from automatically scanning the drive next time.

Thanks, I'll try that asap.