Matt - thanks for talking to me! I was starting to feel like some kinda leper.
Some good news, sort of.
Since 80183 I have not been able to play files at work.
All versions of MJ 7 and MJ8 up to 80180 are able to play muscic. Threw a couple of lunch hours at establishing that!
Since those versions would not play at work, I wasn't brave enough to install at home - until today.
I have since allocated some time to install at home and clean-up to a previous build if necessary.
I have found that at home, in a proxy/firewall free environment, builds after 80180 install and play fine.
This almost certainly relates to the proxy regime in place at work under which, if you recall, no plug-ins, homepages or internet activity whatsoever is possible from within MJ. See the thread "Failed to Connect to Server" which outlines difficulties for which no resolution was ever achieved.
So what changed about versions 80183 and on which required internet access at some point of installation?
There are a few licenses at work that are looking less & less likely to be renewed, and surely our proxy setup is not unique in the world. I have had to seriously curtail my previously widespread recommendations of MJ.
It's tomorrow (saturday) here and a long weekend (Australia Day) so I won't get a chance to run the DependencyWalker until Tuesday, but will do so then.
To reiterate, at work with proxy/firewall of some Novell sort:
- all versions of MJ7 are able play files and access and install plugins,
- no versions of MJ8 are able to access web based views or install any plugins,
- no versions beyond 80180 are able to play music.