Jim...
I don't want to appear harsh, but it sounds like you're trying to pass the buck away from Media Center in your answers to slwiser--trying to lay the blame on an unstable system or third party plug-ins. The one thing you not considering is that it may be something wrong with Media Center. (I say this as someone who has been using it and loving it since version six or so.)
I'm having an identical problem to the one that slwiser is having.
Since upgrading Media Center 12 to its latest version about a week ago, I cannot get it to run more than three minutes without it crashing. There is no pattern to what triggers the crash. If I launch Media Center and don't even touch the keyboard or mouse, within a few minutes, it crashes. I am running no third-party plug-ins. I've done a complete uninstall and reinstall, and like slwiser's machine, mine has a complete, virgin reinstall of Windows that's only about two weeks old. I'm not having problems with any other programs--just Media Center.
I am sending you three files: The report Windows sends to Microsoft, a Media Center report on my system configuration, and a copy of an error screen that appears as the final step in the crash. In that error message, the instruction referenced is always the same, or nearliy so., but the memory location is different each time. Attaching the message turns out to be a pain. It's easier for me to simply type what it says: "The instruction at '0x01408a0d' referenced memory at '0x01db5e60'. The memory could not be 'read'."
I hope you can help. Meanwhile, I'm going back to version 11.
Here's the Media Center report:
Media Center Registered 12.0.185 -- C:\Program Files\! Media\JRiver Media Center\
Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 2991 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2095 MB, Free - 1319 MB
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping / Drive E: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive H: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive I: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive J: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive K: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive L: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive M: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive N: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive O: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive P: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive Q: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive R: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive T: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive U: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive V: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive W: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Drive Y: Mode:Normal Type:Auto Speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: No / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: No
Burning / Drive E: PHILIPS DVD+-RW DVD8631 Addr: 0:0:0 Speed:9 MaxSpeed:9 BurnProof:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: Yes
Use playback settings: No /
I'm putting the microsoft report in a separate message because the forum limits these message to 8,000 characters. I doubt the report will be small enough even by itself, but I don't seen any way to attach a a file.
ron