I have recently purchased a Dell laptop, installed Windows Media Player 11 Beta, but cannot stream any type of media through WMP. The video/audio attempts to load, but nothing happens after several seconds. Video content through Quicktime works flawlessly, and this issue occurs with both Firefox and IE, thus, I can isolate this problem to WMP. I have tried tweaking a number of settings to no avail, installing "Codec Installation Packages for IT Professionals" from Microsoft's website, running anti-virus/spyware programs, all to no avail. This problem only seems to occur on this laptop computer, thus, my router's firewall is not at fault. I desperately want to fix this, as I am unable to view any streaming content from sites such as CNN.com, Yahoo, etc. Any help at all would be appreciated.

Keep in mind it IS a beta, so problems are not unusual.

That is true, yet I have also tried ridding my system of it and replacing it with WMP 9, as well as 10...and I still have the same results. I still cannot understand *why* the video content is not being displayed. I do have this beta version of WMP installed on another system and have never had such issues. My internet connection seems to be fine, yet it is as if the media player is entirely blocking all incoming attempts at making a connection. Again, I will be grateful for any suggestions at all. Thanks.

I have since tried downloading several different codec packs, but the problem remains. I have noticed that when the video that is to be streamed is actually downloaded, it works. The player seemingly restricts it from even being streamed. I have also tried to match my settings within WMP with those of my desktop, yet the problem still persists. I am completely running out of ideas here.