Way off-topic but this has been bugging me for ages so thanks to Hans Melis for figuring out how to fix the pause in Vista's media player that happens every time you play a song. Surprisingly it isn't DRM-related, it's just Vista checking what audio enhancements are available, only it does it every time it loads an audio file. As per Hans' instructions I disabled my audio hardware's enhancements (which weren't active anyway) and now music plays instantly. Yay!