This update simply allows StepMania Player to run on pre-Windows 7 versions of Windows again (e.g. XP). I wasn’t even aware of this problem until a week ago.
You can grab this fixed version from the usual download place (1.66 MB).
DETAILS: This big problem was caused by a change Microsoft made to Windows 7, causing any ActiveX Data Objects-based programs compiled on Win7 to not work on any earlier operating systems . Microsoft acknowledged this problem (and posted even more details here). They released a fix for this that I applied to my own computer before recompiling StepMania Player, allowing the newly-compiled StepMania Player to work on Windows XP again, just like the old times (back on revision 53 and earlier, before I started using Windows 7).
NOTE: Anybody who wants to run StepMania Player does not need to download Microsoft’s fix – only my computer required Microsoft’s fix. Simply download this new version of StepMania Player and it should work (if older versions worked for you).