WhatEVER could be causing an error saying that Winamp is going to close - BUT, the music keeps playing- with nothing in regards to Winamp showing in Task Manager in either Applications or Processes. Reopening Winamp shows the current song and playlist from before the crash but nothing stops the music. All drives have been scanned and come up clean with PC-cillin AV, Spybot, and Pest Patrol and a recent surface scan of the primary drive showed no bad sectors. I know this description's a bit sketchy, but I really have no clue where to even start.

What are you playing in Winamp? A CD? MP3? Is the music possibly coming from a webpage? Have you checked your running processes?

What version of Winamp?

Jennifer - I was playing an mp3 - and, as stated, there were no running processes. OtheHill - Version 2.81 - Up until now, the only version I'd been able to run without glitches. A bit of a followup on myself - I'm beginning to think this and a few other problems are still related to an impending drive failure, even though, as I mentioned, the scandisks I've run have not popped up any warnings or bad sectors. I've noticed applications I've run for years suddenly displaying odd behavior - for instance, the color pallette for my icon creator now shows up below the quicklaunch/taskbar when the application is opened. I do appreciate the follow-ups on this! Thanks!

So you actually went into the Task Manager to verify that winamp.exe process had been stopped? Perhaps it appeared the program was closed, but my guess is the process was still running.

Try Winamp 5.03. Much better than the 3xx series and also plays video. If the problem is actually Winamp that should fix it. From what you say it sounds like there is something more going on. I don't think the harddrive would cause the symptoms you are experiencing. Have you tried Adaware6 and spybot search & destroy for spyware. Also get jvpowertools16 ver195. This is a good, free, safe registry cleaner. Get it here: http://www.oldstuff.myagora.net/lightspeed/lightspeed95.html

I've stuck with Winamp 2.81 because I've had nothing but trouble with every version I've tried since they came out with 3.0. The 5 series seems very prone to give me a lot of "Winamp will now close" error messages. That link however, sounds feasible - I'll be sure to check that out- Thanks! Now the part that will probably get this thread pulled. I am NOT ungrateful for any responses I might get to posted problems. But it's kind of disheartening to see people respond to those problems, giving advice that was already posted as having been tried. And I don't just mean here - I see it a lot on other peoples' threads. I know not everyone is on an equal level with their knowledge of PC's, but please - give me (and others) a break. If the original post said that there was nothing running in Task manager - neither in Applications nor in Processes- I think it would then be safe to assume that that WAS looked at in Task Manager. And, if there are no references to a particular application, I think it's pretty safe to assume that it's not running. OR, if it IS still somehow running, the same question remains- WHY is it running but not showing? I'm sorry if I seem resentful - but, like a lot of people on here, when you're dealing with a bizarre glitch, it isn't the best time to hear something that sounds like, "You don't know what you're doing"...