Winamp & Windows 7 UAC

ncjok

ncjok

ncjok

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17 Jan 2004
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483
I've been using Winamp 2.81 lite (496 KB) for many years and have been putting up with UAC in Win7-64 whenever I want to play or add an mp3 to the playlist as I run as a standard user.

I have finally lost patience with elevating and am wondering if anybody with an up-to-date version can tell me if the program and plugins behaviour has been improved such that UAC doesn't kick in?

I looked at some of the suggestions in a previous thread but have come to the conclusion that it may be a result of this old 'classic' version wanting to write at launch and exit to a few files (Winamp.ini, winamp.m3u and in my case an INI in the Plugins subfolder) which reside under the protected 'Program Files' installation directory.

I've tried moving the plugins to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Winamp\Plugins\ although there was one which required registry adjustment as it came with an unnecessary installer.

Does anyone know if the latest versions make better use of the user's AppData directory and, as a general interest, why the new lite version has crept up to 3.5 MB.

Thanks.
 
AbsenceJam said:
http://www.winamp.com/media-player/download/en

This insistence on using WA 2.x some people have is just silly. WA5 has a custom installer so you can disable anything you don't want including modern skins, you cane even delete more stuff post-install if you want. It's almost exactly the same as WA2 except better and you won't have any issues.
Click to expand...
'Some people' isn't me. Are you telling me that the installer for the latest versions needed to grow by 3 MB to improve the program's ability to play back mp3s? As you can see from my opening post that is all I am concerned with right now.

Are you also saying that, in contrast to lurkio, you run one of the latest revisions (5.572 or 5.58) as a standard user in Windows 7 with UAC enabled and do not get any elevation prompts?

If not, your post is off-topic.
 
5.572 and no UAC prompts.

Who cares about the installer size? It could be 100Mb bigger and you can still choose not to have it all. Yes it plays back MP3's better, improved: decoder, tag support, output options, playlist functionality, etc. Oh and fixes for vulnerabilities and security flaws.....
 
As a standard user now?

I might be incredibly naïve but I do fail to see how updating will otherwise bring tangible benefit in mp3 decoding/playback (my hearing probably won't be able to notice), tag support (ID3v2 appears to work just fine), output options (I'll have to search their site to see what improvements were made) and playlist functionality (add, remove, randomise, save are enough).

Sorry I seem a bit argumentative :)
 
I can confirm the newest Winamp works fine in Standard User accounts on Windows 7.

I installed it with all the features minus the Agent. I then ran it first time as Admin to uncheck "reset file associations at startup". I then ran it as the Standard User and it worked fine. I could play music, add media to the library, edit tag info etc.
 
Thanks for your post SiriusB. After reading your confirmation I went ahead and uninstalled 2.81 / installed 5.58 with the procedure you described but am still stuck with the same UAC issue.

The installer prompted for elevation via UAC because, I'm guessing, it needs to create the Winamp directory in C:\Program Files (x86)\ and make some registry entries. This also results in a Winamp directory (for the settings INI and some other stuff) being created in AppData\Roaming for the Admin user, not my standard user account.

The problem is, however, I find that the icon for winamp.exe in C:\Program Files (x86)\Winamp has a little UAC shield in the bottom right-hand corner. This is also the case for the desktop shortcut.

If I go to winamp.exe Properties -> Compatibility the option "Run this program as an administrator" is ticked and greyed out. If I click the UAC-protected "Change settings for all users" button the Properties page is refreshed and the tick is gone. Close the window, open Properties again and it's back :mad:

I've got a couple of other programs that require elevation because they try to write to a settings INI file when launched. Their executables also show the greyed out tick box in the Compatibility tab but it does behave properly when you elevate for the "Change settings" button.

It has got to be an incompatibility between Winamp and Win7-64.
 
I tested it on Windows 7 64 and never had an issue.

You could simply try installing it away from the Program Files folder, see if that helps.

EDIT: Better still, log on as an admin, install it, then try running it from your normal account.
 
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