Possibly, though I question the network timeout explanation, only because there really isn't a standard. Timeouts will vary by protocol, driver, program, and OS. Plus, I get to cheat a little, since Doug did just reveal 30 seconds was the perceived delay, not the exact delay.

Doug, if you want an easy way to test the services theory, we can try something at the command prompt. Do this after a clean boot, and after the system seems to have settled down.

Before you start Media Player for the first time, run this command:


That command should return a number. Then fire up an MP3 to play, and run the command again, see if the number changes.

net start is outputting what services are currently in the started state. We then pipe the input into the find command. /C is search for a string and count how many lines contain it. /V inverts the search to count how many lines the string did not appear in, then "azazaz" is a garbage string. The end result is counting how may lines of output net start generated each time. If the number goes up in the second run, it means services were started that were in a manual state. To remove the delay the first time a song is played, you could then track down whatever service it is and add it to the automatic startup setting.

On a Windows 7 VM, I had 60 as the pre MP3 number, and 61 when Media Player opened.