thanks for the help, but
this didn't work either. i muted all the windows media noises and it still happened. i heard what you were talking about though and the click was close, but i don't think that's it. right now i am trying to get rid of the 2 second gap and that is greyed out. i went through the old posts from earlier in the year and apparently this is a known issue w/MJ8 that was supposedly fixed in MJ9. but since i had no idea there was a MJ9 when i paid for MJ8 last week, there is no way i'm going to pay for another upgrade. right now i am going to try a few of the tricks the others suggested for that problem (including copying the NERO DLL file to the MJ8 directory) to get rid of that 2 sec gap.
(btw, this is just with the MP3 files i have on the HD. i have yet to burn a CD successfully with this program.... i will comment on that eventually)
i would suggest that if you all have MJ9 available and that is the best version, that Mj8 be scrubbed. i am a manager for customer service for my company and would cringe at the though of purposely having outdated software available for end users that you basically have to pay 2 upgrades for to get a current version, when you could just as easily demo MJ9 and charge 1 upgrade for.
if my workaround don't work, i basically am going to just use this MJ8 program for the editing and media play and scrap the burner part. what a waste that would be... thanks for all your help.