Windows 7: Windows Media Player 12 won't close properly

Hi again. I am writing this on behalf of another computer running Windows 7 x64 OS. It has a strange issue with Windows Media Player.

This happens ONLY in Skin Mode:

When I start WMP and do nothing, and then click on the close button, the window goes away but the wmplayer.exe process remains in the Task Manager and won't go away. If I try to start WMP again at that point, nothing happens. WMP doesn't display its window and about 30 seconds later a get the "Server execution failed" error popup. Wmplayer.exe still resides in the processes list.
Only when I kill the process can I start media player again.

Now, I have tried:
- disabling WMP Network Sharing Service,
- re-registering vbscript.dll and jscript.dll files,
- disabling and re-enabling WMP in Windows Features,
- performing system scan and recovery,
- full computer scan against malware,
all to no avail.

But I did discover something interesting with Process Monitor. When I start WMP and simply just click on the Play menu within the skin mode's menu bar, Process Monitor displays a bunch of new entries made by the wmplayer.exe process. Upon clicking on the Close button, WMP really closes and removes itself from the process list, so I can start it up again with no problems.
Now, something clearly initates something that WMP does and completes when clicking on the Play menu which makes it work and close as intended.

All this happens also if a media file is opened (it doesn't matter if it is an audio or video file). Actually, it is not even required to opean a media file because WMP reproduces this behaviour every time even when simply loaded with no file. Unless I click on the Play menu, WMP will not close properly and remove itself from the memory. Any ideas what else to look for?
Thanks in advance.

Hello UserXP

If the problem only occurs in WMP after you have applied a skin, then I'd first assume that the chosen skin is incompatible with Windows 7. What happens if you choose a different skin? A built-in skin, for example?

It is already using the default skin. I didn't download nor applied any additional skins.
Both skins that come pre-installed with WMP produce the same behaviour.

Does this problem occur in one user account?
Had you tried starting WMP in a different User Account - create a new user profile if necessary ?

The computer already has only one account. Everything works fine but WMP. It's acting out for no apparent reason.
I have read before about the possible solution via creating new accounts, but it didn't change anything.
WMP working normally in skin mode only after clicking on the play menu is weird as hell. I tried all the suggestions listed on the Microsoft's community boards also and none of them gave results.

when you "disabling and re-enabled WMP in Windows Features" did you re-boot the computer before re-enabling?

Of course I did. Windows suggested to restart the computer for the changes to take effect, so I did. I always restart the computer whenever I install or uninstall any piece of software.

Do you now where WMP calls for this "server execution". Does it start a separate process for it? Maybe some change of settings should be made to that "server". And maybe WMP "executes" it properly when clicking on the play menu.

Now, clicking on the Play menu is really just that. Just by displaying the menu WMP fixes itself. I don't even have to point to any option or submenus within the Play menu.