Sounds like some adware files are hanging around on your machine.

Download this free utility and see if helps eradicate the problem

AdAware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/index.html


The Crazy One

I have seen this too, and the URL's ARE embedded in the moviefiles. You can check this simply by noticing that it is at a specific point in the movie that the URL is opened.

Did you ever download/install iMesh; do you have gmt.exe on your system?  Sounds very familiar to me.

no it doesnt seem to be the presence of adware.... i'm quite sure they are embedded in the movie files too. I used to have a few of these small "movie files" that would just display an image and tons of popups when i opened them, but i dont seem to have a copy at hand right now

and no, never downloaded/installed iMesh or have gmt.exe on my system

ahh... my bad, i do have gmt.exe, its some Gator thing, but that monitors internet browsing and popup ads, i dont think it monitors files played by windows media player

From all I've read, that is spyware; here are some examples:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=gmt.exe

It is very likely that you'll need to back up your registry, remove from the start up files, remove all related files from your hard drive and use regedit to search and delete them.  The link posted by CrazyOne may help you eradicate, or perhaps AdAware, or the like.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=remove+gator
You're not alone in this, as you'll see from the links posted as samplings.

Read this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwmt/html/wmp7_urlflips.asp

Especially this section:

Embedding URLs in Digital Media Files
You can embed URLs in your digital media files by using Microsoft Windows Media Advanced Script Indexer. The Advanced Script Indexer is a tool that enables you to insert and edit scripts within any Windows Media file. You can insert any number of URLs in a file, but only one URL can exist at a specified position in the digital media file.

When an embedded URL is encountered in a digital media file, Windows Media Player automatically launches the default Web browser and displays the Web page specified. This feature is called a URL flip. URL flips enable you to synchronize Web pages with specific points in your digital media files.

To obtain more information about embedding URLs or the Advanced Script Indexer, download the Windows Media Resource Kit from the Windows Media Technologies Web site.

Suggest that you download some other "media player", not from MS, and play the videos with that.

i know gator is spyware and i know i'll get popups from that, but that's not what my question was talking about. I think tonnybrandt hit it right, but the question is on how to prevent the URLs from launching, like is there some option that can be set in wmp? or is the only option to use some other "media player"

Any progress ?

Here is a page with some players:
http://www.autobanners.net/codec/viewers.html

heh, no, i'll just have to put up with it... getting windows media player out of win xp is going to be a pain in the ass

Streaming video is unique; I don't think your problem is related to the Player so much as the files you are accessing which appear to have the pop ups embedded versus an actual player problem.  

My Appologies, it's getting too late!

Selcon,
No comment has been added lately, so it's time to clean up this TA.
I will leave a recommendation in the Cleanup topic area for this question:

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Thanks,

jonnyz0109
EE Cleanup Volunteer