I like neither Windows Media Player or Real Player.
Windows Media Player scours your Hard Drive for a list of DVD's played and sends that list back to Microsoft.
www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/wmp8dvd.htm
Real Audio Player does the same to MP3's, but the list goes elsewhere.
By the way, did you know that EVERY email message and url you ever typed is kept in a secret file? Some of these files are up to 200MB.
I think this is the main reason that when a man's computer slows down and won't run people have to reformat their drive. There is simply not enough room for an adequate Windows swap file at some point in time.
Clearing cache, or cookies, does not get rid of it.
Read more at
http://www.fsm.nl/ward/ - It's free for a while.