Sony NWZ-S739F playlists not loading pla/m3u MediaMonkey

[hindsight5000]

i have searched here as well as elsewhere on the web to find this solution but so far havent had too much joy.
I have a Sony NWZ-S739F which i use religiously and have no problems with.
But recently my pc got killer infected and had to be wiped clean and XP reinstalled. So now on my pc i have WMP 10 which i despise, and MediaMonkey (cant remember which version).
I used to have WMP 7 (i think) and this syncd with the player fine. Creating playlists was easy, but MediaMonkey only creates playlists as M3U, not .pla which the device uses.
with either MM or WMP if i try to sync a playlist, the songs go to the device but not 'in' the playlist. they are just random songs on the player.
So anyone have any ideas how i can start loading playlists to the player again?

i rarely listen to full albums so playlists for me are a necessity

thanks in advance for any help or links

[CrowdAds]