This information applies only to users running Windows Media Player 9 Series Beta on Windows XP or Windows .NET Server together with a third party firewall software.

Microsoft has received reports of the Windows Media Player 9 Series Beta crashing when attempting to stream from over the network when there is a third party firewall software installed on the computer.

Problem:
On Windows XP and Windows .NET Server the Windows Media Player 9 Series Beta calls into a new Winsock API for performance reasons. There are some incompatibilities when using this API with existing third party firewall software.

Workaround: The following steps are intended to serve as an interim workaround for the Beta release of the Windows Media Player 9 Series.

1) Quit the Media Player if it is running.
2) Copy the file C:Windowssystem32wmnetmgr.dll to the "C:Program FilesWindows Media Player" directory.
3) Rename the new copy of the file (in the "C:Program FilesWindows Media Player" directory) to wspwsp.dll.
4) Open a command window (click the "Start" button and select "Run" then type CMD.EXE and hit enter).
5) Type in the following line into the command window and hit the enter key: regsvr32.exe "C:Program FilesWindows Media Playerwspwsp.dll"
6) Run the Windows Media Player 9 Series beta and attempt to stream content from over the network.
NOTE: Following these steps are not supported and Microsoft is not responsible for any problems that may occur as a result.