Computer is acting odd

Wash

So, my computer just did something pretty odd for the second time in three days.

I was listening to music on Windows Media Player, I had Firefox open as well as AIM and MSN, when the music abruptly stopped. So I did what I always do when a song stops -- I clicked Windows Media Player, with the idea of putting on another song. However, when I clicked Windows Media Player -- which I have on minimize -- it wouldn't respond. Even worse, was that everything at the bottom of my screen -- the start button and the tabs for firefox, AIM and MSN -- were unresponsive and still are. I tried ctrl + alt + delete, but in the Applications section of Windows Task Manager it doesn't even list Windows Media Player as being active. Everything else seems fine, albeit a little slow.

What's going on and what should I do? Restarting the computer worked last time, but I'd rather stop this from happening again.

Ruckus

See if wmplayer.exe is in the "Processes" list, and if it is, End Process.

Also, sort the list by CPU usage and see if anything else is eating up CPU time like crazy.

Worst case, you can end process on "explorer.exe" and then on the application tab do a "New Task" and run "explorer.exe" again.

Sir Red of the Manti

Check your event logs at around the time the problem occurred. Chances are something wacky happened at that moment which caused everything else to hang.