music doesn't play with slideshow

[thehamguy1]

I'd be a buyer in a hurry if the software would play my .mp3 file(s)
with the slideshow. Even with the latest version of WMP installed
(7.1, for Win98), no luck. Pretty pictures, nice transitions, no
sound, no music.

Other posts indicate that installing the latest WMP fixed things but
it hasn't worked for me. I can play my .mp3 files with WMP so I know
it's not a problem with file associations or with WMP in general. I
can also manually run WMP in the background, then play the slideshow,
but it's supposed to be more sophisticated than that. I saw it run
on a friend's machine and t'was awesome. I want that.

Second issue: the "troubleshooting" link in the Xatshow help system
sent me to Update.shtml on the company's website. That page told me
to install Hhupd.exe--which I did--but the page still tells me I need
to install it and never gets around to helping with the problem. Is
there a problem with this particular web page detecting the
components it needs? I've tried it with my firewall turned off but
still the same response.

What audio codec is needed? I can access a list of installed codecs
to check whether I have it. Installing the latest WMP should have
taken care of that, especially since my .mp3s DO play in WMP.

Lee