Winamp & Shoutcast Forums - Skins Not Loading

OS - Microsoft Windows XP Pro
Version - Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600

Winamp Version - 5.581 (x86)

I was wanting some more skins for my Winamp player so i went through the Winamp menu for <<Get More Skins!>>. Low and behold, nothing happened. No web browser came up. Not a big deal, I simply logged onto the Winamp website and went skin browsing. I downloaded 3 skins that I thought I would like. Tried installing them and nothing. I checked the forums for some help and found a few things to try. Since selecting the skins from the Winamp menu didn't work. This is what I have tried.

1. Uninstalled Winamp with a full 100% re-install except the Toolbar. (First install I didn't install a few things such as Winamp Agent)

2. Rename the files from .wal to wsz. (this didn't work when trying to load the skin via Winamp menu or double clicking in Windows Explorer.)

3. (Last but not least) I tried changing the skins directory among a combination of the second thing I tried.

All three things failed. Granted, the forum threads and posts that I read were for fixing small problems on Windows Vista and not XP Pro. There simply were no posts made to address Windows XP Pro. If there are, then I either overlooked them or the Search command didn't bring up the hits for them. If there is a fix for this great, if not then that's fine. If someone knows how to fix this annoying problem, please help. You don't have to help via using lamens terms either, I'm a little smarter than the average person with a computer.