Having strange problems with WMP9 - help

Having strange problems with XP and video files - help

Stupid Windows.....

Okay, so here are two problems that I'm running into and I think they are both related.

1) I try to play *any* type of media file in WMP and I get the following friendly popup:


"1% is not a valid Win32 Application"


Files that open fine in QT or other media apps do not open at all with WMP.

2) When attempting to reinstall WMP9 I get the following message:


setup_wm.exe - Bad Image
The application or DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\quartz.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette.


I know this was working not too long ago; although to be honest, I'm not sure if I was running WMP9 or the version that comes with XP. I recall attempting to install WMP9 some time ago and running into the same message. Originally this was preceeded by its complaint about my System Restore not being started, but I do not think they are related. As a side note I tried starting the service, then reinstalling, but to no avail.

Any help would be mucho-appreciated-o
Thanks in advance!

*UPDATE 3/30/04 22:58pst*
I actually just tried running *.avi and *.mpg files with Winamp2.9x and I received a message similar to #2 above:


file_name - Winamp: winamp.exe - Bad Image
The application or DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\quartz.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette.




System:
Windows XP Pro (pre-SP)
Windows Media Player 9.0

WHen you get the error message, does a it give you an error code. I had a problem with WMP9, where it refused to play anything because the right devices were not installed, if there is an error code, lick to read it, and then there is a link to go the web, and they have a newsgroup where users post errors. Search your error code and see what people recommended to fix it. You may have to try more than one method, it took me three tries before I found what was wrong.