I run Windows XP (Home edition) with my unit with no problems, but I use Ethernet as its faster than Serial or USB.

I had very similar problems to what you describe yesterday with the newest version of Emplode on my Windows 2K Laptop - which worked fine under the older version of Emplode (which I uninstalled first before installing the newer Emplode).

To cure it I exited Emplode, powered off the player (i.e. removed the power plug from the rear of the player, then plugged it back in).

Then reconnected to the player within Emplode, I used Ethernet only.
This worked fine then.

I understand that with the newer Emplode version (and for the USB support in Emplode in particular) its critical that you uninstalled the older version of Emplode, then installed the newer one rather than installed the new one 'over the top' of the older Emplode.

So, if you try the above and you didn't uninstall the older emplode and get the problems still, then I would uninstall both emplode versions [newer version, then the older one], then install the new version of emplode.

Hopefully that will get you going again