Subject says most of it. Here is my system Data:
XP SP3, sempron 2800 (1.6 GHz) 1 GB 333 RAM
VLC 1.1.4
VLC crashes with commercial CDs as well as ones I burned with RealPlayer. On the other hand, RealPlayer plays these CDs as do Windows Media Player and iTunes, with no difficulty.
I do not recall having this problem with earlier VLC versions. To confirm this, I'll need to remove this and reinstall 1.1.3.
Kudos: VLC produces far better sound on my system, is simpler to use yet has excellent features, much better than either of the other two above mentioned players.