Windows Media Player – BSOD

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I am running XP-Pro 5.2.2600 SP 3 Build 2600 kept up-to-date. I browse with Mozilla SeaMonkey 2.0.13 (Build identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.18) Gecko/20110320 SeaMonkey/2.0.13.)

This morning I booted my machine and proceeded to check email by opening two browser windows. I mis-clicked on the Quick Launch bar the second time and opened Windows Media Player instead. There was no X in the upper right corner to shut it down, but rather an “up-and-down arrow” suggesting that it was not maximized. I tried to grab the edge of the window and got a BSOD.

I am running two sets of duplicate hard drives under Intel Rapid Storage Technology RAID1. When the machine crashes like this, the software takes a longish while to check and rebuild the RAID structure. I am loath to try to reproduce this phenomenon. Instead I’m starting my investigation by posting to ask if anyone is aware of a recent upgrade to WMP (which I seldom use) that might have caused it.

Thanks,

baumgrenze

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Do you have the most current version of WMP for XP installed?

Joe

--Joe

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Joe,

Thanks for asking. Boy is it hard to tell. WMP appears not to have a “Help/About” feature, unlike most other software. I did right click the icon on my Quick Launch and learned that is was created on Thursday, February 11, 2010, 10:01:47 AM and that Compatibility Modes cannot be set because it is part of XP. To the best of my understanding, if I keep XP up to date (Secunia and Belarc both say this is true) then I should have the current version. Perhaps it is just a ‘feature’ of an OS that Redmond has wanted to jettison for a long time.

baumgrenze

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What is the error in the BSOD says? if the BSOD is caused by a certain software it’s mostly due to drivers incompatibility. Well based on my experienced.

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Microsoft is making it more difficult to find the version information easily. You can find the version of WMP by right clicking in a blank area next to the forward/back buttons and selecting Help | About.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks again, Joe.

Help/About says the version is 11.0.5721.5280.

The MS download page at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1d224714-e238-4e45-8668-5166114010ca

says that the version available for download is “951929.”

I guess it is not by chance that the format of the version numbers is completely different.

I reran Belarc and it still insists I am up to date, as does Secunia PSI.

At this point I am underwhelmed by MS Support and thus as resistant as I can be to spend yet more money on a newer MS OS. At the same time I have limited time and am also disinclined to dig my way through the learning process required to shift to LINUX.

I’m inclined to assign the BSOD to a misdirected bit. With hindsight I can wish that I’d done a screen dump, pasted to Word and then immediately saved the document, but there are limits to the amount of time an individual can dedicate to documenting strange software behavior, too.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

baumgrenze

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Without more details about the BSOD it is impossible to give a good guess.

Joe

--Joe

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