Recently reformatted hard drive and reinstalled Win98SE on my 700 MHz Gateway. First thing I did was re-establish cable internet connection, download and set up Zone Alarm, download Win98 updates and service pack for IE 6.0, Netscape v7.2, then reinstalled NAV 2004. Then went to the Phil Hendrie website with Netscape to listen to radio show via Win Media Player. I clicked on website WMP link and WMP played the show, no problem. Also downloaded and installed ACE-HIGH MP3 recorder which worked fine. Continued re-installing software / hardware that I had before (printers, scanner, web cam, ect). At one point I went to listen to the same radio show again, and WMP (v9 series which I used prior to my reformatting) says it cannot play the media from the website. Did see an error code of C00D07E2. It won't even play mp3 files on my hard drive. Also noticed that when I click on ACE-HIGH MP3 player, the pointer turns to an hour glass for a few seconds, then reverts to arrow but the player never comes up. However, when I shut down, the task manager says its still up, and if I try to 'End Task', the system usually hangs at that point. I have also installed a Mahjong game that worked before, and same thing happens. When I click on the incon to run it, the pointer arrows changes to an hour glass for ten seconds or so, and nothing happens. Any ideas? I'm about to reformat again and start from scratch, and test everything after each software / hardware install to see if something in particular is causing a problem. Don't know if this is related, but before I had to reformat, whenever I used the ACE-HIGH MP3 recorder, in order to be able to access the various inputs (CD, Mic, 'What U Hear', etc)in the drop-down menu, I would have to go to the Device Manager and delete the Soundblaster Live card, then restart the PC. When it came up Win98 detected the 'new' hardware and installed the drivers, and then the various inputs would be available. If I then shut down and restarted the PC without deleting the soundcard, only the 'mic' input would again be available. I know this is a lot. Any help will be appreciated. Tks mucho! Joe

i suspect you have a conflict between the codecs and decodecs in your machine (because of the installation of all the software i cant tell where did this conflict could have started), before reformatting i suggest you download a codec pack and check wether the problem persists, i recommend k-lite codec pack, i use it and it's very good (i also have win98 running and i have no problem with it, my problems appear when i don't have the codec pack installed so i always keep it in my system), hope this helps