>>Is it necessary to have Real Player, Windows Media Player or any other players installed or can MJB stand alone?
RP & WMP (v7.1 or less, NOT v9!) peacefully coexist with MJ. In fact for some RP streams, it IS necessary to have RP installed (last I checked). Don't know if you can really uninstall WMP, but like I said, u don't need to.
Pops & skips may be caused by your playback mode.
Go to Settings>Options>Playback and change output mode to DirectSound, bitdepth to either source or 16 bit, and click on the settings button and move slider all the way to more responsive.
It doesn't hurt to check if you have the latest of everything: OS service packs, soundcard drivers, latest ASPI (despite MJ using internal version), etc.
Xenno