WMP 11 freezing

recently wmp 11 has stared freezing, it opens in the library and plays okay but when I try the now playing tab it freezes. I tried re-installing etc. tried earlier versions but still have problems.
running XP Home fully updated.
Can anyone help please.:cry

 

So the library opens, you can select a song and play it okay until you click on now playing?? Correct?

Do you presently have a lot of media files on your computer?

 

yes around 150 albums these have been on for some time.

 

even on a fairly quick dualcore machine, wmp does get a bit chuggish for me, with alot of files in the library. One thing i can think of is do you have any added on visualizations or anything? or has something related to your video drivers or the like happened recently?

 

no nothing

 

This may be random, but I found that AOL instant messenger and WMP cannot really co-exist. But uninstalling AIM, I found that I had no more problems getting locked-up.

 

thanks for the reply but don't do AOL.