Media Player Issues

When browsing a website that has a movie embedded in it, I click on the movie and it brings up Windows Media Player. It then proceeds to load the file then crashes with an application error like that below:

Application popup: wmplayer.exe – Application Error : The instruction at “0x1d2066b2” referenced memory at “0x00000000”. The memory could not be “read”.

Click on OK to terminate the program

Each crash has the EXACT same info!

If I download the file and play it locally it runs great.

I have used multiple versions of WM with no change. I downloaded a new 3rd party media player and changed the file types to point to this new media player but IE keeps bringing up Windows Media Player.

Any suggestions?