Hey- Had the same prob on my laptop*-Compaq Evo N600c 866 pIII,512 ram 16 mb ATI Radeon win 2000 server pro.Did all the above mentioned-no luck. My son told me to update or at least reload the vid drivers -I did and voila! VLC is back! yeahhhh kdub * yeah I know it's supposed to be a boat anchor but...