Including my Playlists in My Music library adds an ugly Unspecified artist

Question

I finally got around to organizing My Music library and I'm having a problem with my playlists. As far as I can tell, Windows Media Player requires my Playlists folder to be included in the library. In doing so, Windows Explorer treats the Playlist as a "song" of sorts and when the library is sorted by Artist, it adds this Unspecified folder at the end with a default icon. Clicking on it goes to the Albums view under that artist, which just displays another Unspecified folder which the playlists are actually in.

Is there any way to perhaps "hide" this fake album inside Windows Explorer so it doesn't show up, but Windows Media Player still has access to it? Or perhaps a way to include playlists in Windows Media Player without actually including them in the My Music library?

Answer 1

Found a simple way to do this by just hiding the Playlists folder itself. Just right click on the entire Playlists folder, go to the Properties, and check the Hidden property. Apply it to all sub-folders and files, and it will be hidden from Windows Explorer. This prevents it from creating the exact Unspecified album in the My Music library, and Windows Media Player still has access to playlist files themselves.