Odd Audio CD problem

[AlexSGV]

Hello,
My system exhibits an odd problem: If put an Audio CD in one of my real drives, and I do NOT have a virtual drive emulated with Daemon tools at the moment, player applications like Winamp and Windows Media Player do not recognize the Audio CDs and do not play any of the tracks. Applications such as Exact Audio Copy and Nero seem immune to this problem, and Windows correctly identifies the CD as an Audio CD with the correct number of tracks.

Here is a screenshot of Winamp after I made windows play an Audio CD that i just popped into one of my real drives (note how the "CD-R F:" drive is recognized as having a CD with capacity "0:00" in it):


Now, if I DO have a virtual drive emulated with Daemon tools (no image has to be mounted), all of a sudden, all audio CDs get recognized correctly and play fine in both of my CD-ROM and my DVD±RW drive. An Image of an Audio CD emulated in Daemon's virtual drive plays fine as well...

Does anyone have any ideas as to why my system cannot play Audio CDs when I do not have any virtual drives enabled? Would a registry hack help, or is the problem simpler/tougher?

Thanks for all advice.

[AlexSGV]

Well, I sadly have no clue what exactly fixed it, but my issue is gone... What I know is that the AC-3 ACM Decompressor I had installed does not seem to have been the problem. Maybe the DRM update from Windows Update played a role, as rediculous as it may sound. Afterall, that update did fix the playback of some *NON DRM* .wmv files that I have.

Oh well, better be unaware how something got fixed, instead of how something got broken