IE 8 will not open links related to windows media player in Vista Ultimate

I have Vista Ultimate installed on my computer and starting yesterday WMP11 would not open any links to windows media player files (qicktime plays just fine). When I click on a link it will open a new tab and say “could not connect”. If I put the specific URL in WMP it works and opens just fine. Any idea what is going on? I have tired to install and and reinstall WMP & IE but neither seem to work to resolve the issue.