Hi Mark and . . .

Well, a restart took care of the playing for more than a few seconds before total freeze. Since then I have uninstalled Windows Media Connect from the computer as well as removing Nero Fast CD Burner as a WMP plugin since I can't find how to uninstall just that. The midi playback worked with pops after both of those moves...until restarting.

I installed the Creative Media Source update and again midi played in Composer, WMP and Creative Media Player, with pops and until restarting.

I suppose that restarting seems to work the opposite of the way one might expect it to should tell me something, but I can't put my finger on what.

A complete wipe of anything from Creative (and maybe Nero, too), followed by reinstallation seems the next step, unless I can think of something better. There is one thing: the legacy audio drivers have Total Recorder as the playback driver for midi, but the only reference to this I can find is in Device Manager/Sounds, and there seems to be no option to change this. (I have changed Total Recorder to use SB Audigy 2 drivers, and TR still records fine).

It is not that the sound card won't work on the old Dell I have. I tried line in and my tape/cd player produces sounds I've never heard from its woofer or tweeters before--as if a baffle had been removed from in front of the orchestra. And wav and mp3 play excellently (and without the pops) in WMP and CMP.

It's just midi. Sigh....

If anybody can suggest what is eluding me about the restart killing any but a few seconds or midi playback before a crash, I'll try any idea at this point.

best,
mgj