This is so weird:

any mp3 file added to the music folder appears listed in the touchsmart music GUI but does not play. 

I realized this after finding out that the Vista preloaded music files worked perfectly. Trying different things made me realize that touchsmart music plays .wma files but doesn't play .mp3

Every music file loaded into the music folder gets listed in the touchsmart music window, album covers, tags etc. When you click on a file it starts playing but, if .mp3 doesn't sound.  The software doesn't lock, no error message appears, nothing is apparently wrong but you can hear no sound.  If the file is a .wma file, you see no difference but you hear the sound.  I seem to remember that before updating WMP to version 11 it didn't show this problem, but I'm not sure.

I searched for options to change settings for touchsmart software but didn't find any.

Does anybody have a solution? Is there a tweak program to use on touchsmart?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.