I know many Mudcatters have downloaded the latest Real Player update in order to listen to Mudcat Radio. I have done this as well. I have also had a series of unexplained crashes and eventually a blown file or two. Since I have several people using my PC at home, I never thought the crashes and the upgrade were related.

In the last few days I have repaired, and reloaded my system and resolved the problems. In the process I had eliminated the Real Player download, so one of the last things I did was download it again, and install it. My system problem returned! (It starts when Real Player is loaded but not used for several minutes ... my Windows 98 apps just lock up. I can do "ctl/alt/dlt" and kill the Real Player app, which is "Not Responding" - but the system remains trying to cope with an error the entire time, and when I shut down I receive another error). I still would think that it was just my own PC, and in fact did think that until I downloaded Real Player to my NT machine at at work today - and got the exact same lock up on it. Again, Real Player is loaded, I haven't used it for a few minutes, and then what ever other app I am running locks up completely, I can do nothing but cntl/alt/dlt, look at the task menu, see that Real Player is "Not Responding" and I have to kill it from that menu. If I do, I can go back and work the other apps, but when I shut down the machine, I see that some other error condition has remained the entire time.

Anyone else seeing this type of prob with Real Player??

Any thoughts?