running emacs -Q on windows 8
tried (play-sound '(sound :file "c:/users/mario/desktop/whatever.wav"))
in *scratch* buffer.
if the file exists, it works fine. if the file does not exist, emacs
crashes.

In GNU Emacs 24.3.1 (i386-mingw-nt6.2.9200)
 of 2013-03-17 on MARVIN
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 6.2.9200
Configured using:
 `configure --with-gcc (4.7) --cflags
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libXpm-3.5.8/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libXpm-3.5.8/src
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libpng-dev_1.4.3-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/zlib-dev_1.2.5-2/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/giflib-4.1.4-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/jpeg-6b-4/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/tiff-3.8.2-1/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/gnutls-3.0.9/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libiconv-1.13.1-1-dev/include
 -ID:/devel/emacs/libs/libxml2-2.7.8/include/libxml2'

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: ESM
  locale-coding-system: cp1252
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent input:
<help-echo> ( p l a y - s o u n d SPC ' ( s o u n d
SPC : f i l e SPC " c : / u s e r s / m a r i o / d
e s k t o p / c o p m <backspace> <backspace> m p l
e t e d . w a <C-backspace> <C-backspace> n o <backspace>
<backspace> w h <backspace> <backspace> a s d f . w
a v " ) ) <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo>
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo>
<help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo>
<help-echo> <menu-bar> <help-menu> <send-emacs-bug
-report>

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort gnus-util mail-extr emacsbug message format-spec rfc822 mml
easymenu mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231
mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums
mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils time-date tooltip ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type mwheel dos-w32 ls-lisp w32-common-fns disp-table w32-win
w32-vars tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list
newcomment lisp-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham
georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic
indian cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple
abbrev minibuffer loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files
text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule
custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process
w32 multi-tty emacs)