Ok, I ripped a cd I bought (don't sick the RIAA on me, I own the CD!) and I encoded it as mp3 and played on Linux. Sounds great! Then I copied the files over to my XP box so I could rock out on the system with better speakers... It sounds pretty staticy when played in WMP. What's up with that? Is the Linux system maybe ignoring some kind of copy protection?

Try a different mp3 with WMP? Also turn off visualizations and see if that makes a difference.

might be WMP's codec... did you use Vorbis codec?
Give winamp 5 a try, it's great! It has Vorbis support as well as AAC support -winamp.com of course. If static continues then i have no idea what it could be.

I don't use visualizations and it happened on both the cd's I ripped.

I think I remember seeing the word Vorbis somewhere when I installed the encoding software on the linux side, hmmm. I used "notlame" for the mp3 encoding.

I'll try Winamp, I always liked the sound of WMP better than any other I tried. Also, I listen to a "premium" radio station, not sure if I can access it from another player. Hmm...