Three Sheds -

It sounds like you just haven't put the finishing touches on the new sound card installation. Often the instructions that come with them stop at "Windows recognizes the card." You may have lost codex files needed to "translate" the digits into music, and/or some of the settings you need to tweak in the sound card control panel(s) aren't all there. If the troubleshooting help that were linked up at "From: bobad – PM, Date: 27 Nov 06 - 09:59 PM" don't help, the sound card maker most likely has a web site to offer suggestions.

leenia -

There's really none I trust fully, largely because of the continual/continuing battle over "Digital Rights." The various players nearly all try to call home to rat on you about what you play, in the hope of catching you doing something illegal. Most of the players are shot full of "vulnerabilities" that can open your machine up to malware, and they're typically very slow patching anything. The player manufacturers, and perhaps more so the "media producers" seem to think they have to keep their methods of spying on you some kind of secret - and as the Sony incidents, which keep recurring, show - the "media idiots" aren't really very competent at computer technology.

Windows Media Player is probably as "general purpose" and as stable as you'll find; but you will run into music/video files that it doesn't play, so most people eventually have a selection of "player" programs. Each program has to be whipped into complying with your intentions, if you don't want to just live with what "they" think you're supposed to enjoy.

Almost any of the common players can be made to behave, at least to some minimally tolerable level. Every one of them (including the freeware/shareware alternates) likely will take some caution in getting it right during installation¹ and in making adjustments after it's in place.

¹ ... of course you do read the EULAS before you start an installation ... (?)

John