There is a memory leak that results from using Windows Media Player 11 on high definition audio devices having to do with the Lsm.exe process.
As you fast forward through your Windows Media Player library, or have a playlist set to repeat, you may lose a large amount of handles in a short amount of time. This can lead to performance degradation and in some cases, "out of memory" error messages and other unexpected behavior. If you review the Task Manager you may notice that Lsm.exe is consuming a large amount of memory.
This issue only occurs if the following statements are true:
- Your computer utilizes a High Definition Audio Device
- You are running Windows Vista, or Windows Vista 64-bit.
- You are using Windows Media Player 11 to play back audio files.
There is a hotfix available from Microsoft to resolve this issue (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/933245) however Kristan Kenney describes a scenario where the hotfix may still not work so you might want to check out his blog for more information.
Kristan Kenney’s Blog on Windows-Now:
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/kmkenney/archive/2007/05/21/workaround-for-lsm-exe-handle-and-memory-leak.aspx
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 