Nero interferes with Windows Media Player when Regional And Language set to not US

Burning Software Nero & InCD
#1

I installed the latest Nero 7 Ultra.
All of the burning and encoding features worked great.

The problem happens when I start Windows Media Player (not ShowTime).
When I try to play a DivX, a pop up shows up (in foreign language) and wants me to enter some other registration code. Lots of text that says something about me not having a license to run in this language.

I am using a regular US version of Windows XP, but I had to set the “Regional And Language”-> Advanced to Japanese to use certain applications that are not UniCode.

If I turn Language for non Unicode programs to English (US), no popup. If I turn it to Japanese, I get a popup.

I don’t see why Nero should interfere with me playing DivX in WMPlayer ?

My first thought was that it is the 20 filters that Nero installed. I went and disabled all of the filters with DirectShow Filter Manager. Still there is a popup.

Next, I tried to figure out where this popup comes from. Using process viewer, I see that it is user.dll (no help) and it has WMPlayer.exe name string. So, I can’t figure out what real DLL, AX or EXE started it. Even in the task bar, the popup has the same icon as WMPlayer.

Can someone help me out here ?

You can replicate the problem by changing your “Regional And Language”-> Advanced to Japanese (Then reboot). It should not affect any normal American programs.

#2

I figured it out. Using Process Monitor I noticed that Windows Media Player was loading a Nero CD/DVD Burning plug-in.

Then I waded through the WMPlayer menus and found the check box that disables this plugin. (Plus a couple of other plugins that help make WMPlayer the slowest loading player in the world).