Use any other media player. Windows media player is uselessly heavy and not to good.
Winamp is very good and free. It can play several audio formats that WMP just can't play, like OGG and FLAC. In my experience, it loads and start faster than WMP.
For your videos and other animations, you can use VLC. This one will also be able to play several video files that makes WMP choke.
Electro, May 2011
