Winamp crashes my PC when a playlist is in the "Startup" folder

[mark..g]

Winamp kicks ass, and I cannot remember the last time it crashed, except when I place a shortcut to a playlist in my start-up menu, in which case it locks up my PC 70%ish of the time.

I know Winamp is involved (if not to blame) in the lockups because
a) my PC doesn’t ever lockup without the shortcut in the start menu and
b) it works fine if I put in a shortcut to the accursed WMP

The one difference I have noted, is that although during the intense HD activity at Windoze start-up both Winamp and WMP's windows appear after about the same length of time but, Winamp starts to play almost immediately, whereas WMP waits until HD activity has died down.

[DJ Egg]

We need more info

System specs:
cpu, ram, windows os, soundcard, directx

What other programs are loading at startup?
(start -> run -> msconfig -> startup tab)

Winamp version #
Any extra 3rd-party plugins?

What filetypes are linked to in the playlist? (mp3, wav, wma, other?)
Is it an .m3u or .pls playlist?
Was it created with Winamp?
How big is it? (filesize & no. of entries)

The command line for the shortcut you are using

[mark..g]

Thanks for the rapid reply, here's the requseted info

cpu: athlon xp 1800
ram: 256mb ddr
os: win 98 SE
sound: intergrated 5.1, avance ac 97
directx: 9.0b
Winamp: 2.91
Startup: taskbar diplay controls, systray, and loads of music.m3u
files: all mp3, 719 files, filesize 80KB created with winamp
shortcut: points to "E:\My Documents\Loads of music.m3u"
plugins: I don't think anything I have is active at startup. I don't use skins or any dsp/effects. I seem to be using the directsound output and the nullsoft decoder.

I could write a small visual basic program that waits 10 seconds before starting winamp, I just couldn't be bothered.

Or does anybody know how to write a bat file that will delay startup?

[DJ Egg]

Please try this command line in the shortcut instead

"C:\Program Files\Winamp\winamp.exe" "E:\My Documents\Loads of music.m3u"

(naturally, adjust the path to winamp.exe if different to default location)


If the problem persists, we'll take things from there...