I've been experimenting in the last hour or so with various Audio Device options, one of which was "Creative [ASIO]", which I have never used before today. That option failed to work in some way (don't remember exactly how, but probably no sound), and so I switched the Audio Device setting back to "Default Audio Device [Direct Sound]", which has worked normally—until now. Now, when I try to play a song in my library, the player display shows the correct information for the song, but it does not play the song.
While troubleshooting this problem, I decided to see what iTunes would do, and I found that it does the same thing—the title bar display shows the correct information for the song, but iTunes also does not play the song.
The specific (as opposed to "Default Audio Device [Direct Sound]") Creative SB and Peachtree External DAC Audio Device options using Direct Sound also do not play. I've used both of these Audio Device options during the past couple of weeks, and they worked normally. But not now.
Note that MC *will* work correctly with the the Peachtree External DAC Audio Device ASIO or WASAPI options selected, at which point iTunes also begins working normally again.
Also, I find that when I reboot Windows (7 Ultimate, 64-bit), my machine takes about three times longer than usual to get to the desktop.
Finally, I'll mention that this is not the first time that simply changing the Audio Device options back and forth has caused a problem. In the three weeks or so since I first installed MC 20, there were two other occasions on which adjusting these Audio Device options cause MC to malfunction/hang in some way. In both of those cases I uninstalled and reinstalled MC in order to solve the problem.
What is going on here? Is there some sort of conflict between MC and Windows? Why was iTunes also affected? (I've been using iTunes for years and while the iTunes Store has occasionally malfunctioned, the iTunes player has never malfunctioned.)
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Running Win 7, 64-bit, Creative SB X-Fi card, Peachtree 24/192 USB X DAC
George