Media Player 7.1 locks up seconds after opening - cause?

[Jeff7]

Yet another "didn't do anything" problem - Media Player was going along just fine on this computer for awhile, then one day, it died - it locks up the entire system completely about 3 seconds after I open it.
Zonealarm kept saying that MP was asking for Net access; I thought that might be the problem, so I disabled Zonealarm. No effect. I have completely uninstalled Media Player and any traces of it, and reinstalled; still locks.
System info:
T-bird 700
TNT2 AGP, latest official Dets from nVidia
DX 8.1
Win98SE
Nothing is overclocked.

 

[NEVERwinter]

might be caused by ZApro, you know.. on some system.. the effects opf ZApro is permanent (so if you disabled acces for WMP and then you uninstalle ZApro, WMP wont get access forever). try to re-enable everything and uninstall ZApro

 

[Jeff7]

OK; but the weird thing is, all my other computers are running ZA with the same settings; Media Player simply would cause the Alert Window to pop up, then I'd hit Remember this setting, and then Yes to give it access, and it'd work. On my dad's computer though (the problematic one), it asks for access, I hit yes, then a second later, the system locks. I'll uninstall ZA and MP, and reinstall just Media Player and see if that does it. Any suggestions in the meantime would be nice too though.

 

[Packy]

Try disabling WMP's ability to look for and download new codecs. I finally turned it off when WMP would constantly look for codecs for videos it could already play and tell me there was a problem when there wasn't.

My favorite version of WMP is 6.0 since it's clean and simple

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Packy
Try disabling WMP's ability to look for and download new codecs. I finally turned it off when WMP would constantly look for codecs for videos it could already play and tell me there was a problem when there wasn't.

Problem there is that I can't do that - it locks up too quick. It will lock up if I a)just open Media Player itself, or b) if I try to open a media file using Explorer, which opens up Media Player.

 

[Jeff7]

Update:
Uninstalled Zonealarm, and Media Player.
Reinstalled Media Player 7.1. No change.
Uninstalled MP 7.1; trying 6.4.
v6.4 will play video, but as soon as I try to change the options, it too freezes. What gives here???

 

[Jeff7]

Another update:
I can change the settings while in safe mode. I disabled the auto-download settings, and reduced the hardware acceleration sliders, then booted to normal Windows - it still locks up.

 

[Jeff7]

Bump; still doesn't work.

 

[Jeff7]

**NEW INFO**

I just found out that it only locks up in full mode. I spliced in some registry settings that made MP load in compact mode, and it works perfectly. HOWEVER, as soon as I switched it to Full Mode, it froze dead. Ideas?