My original problem was solved, see the information above. However, I had a related experience yesterday. The net was down, so after a couple of hours I broke out the CD's for a little entrainment. Poped one into the optical drive, The reader and software told me I had a disk and its title, so I called down vlc and ask it to play the CD. Vlc stood there for about 30sec., considering the situation, then ran and hid in the upper toolbar behind the all other icons. I changed CD's. The same thing happened. Humm ? I believe we have seen this before. I waited until the next day when the net was back. Tried a couple of CD's; no issues, everything ran like a Swiss watch. Would you believe that vlc has to duck out to check with mother to see if it is OK to play a CD? I seem to learn something new everyday.