Adding Live365 to Online Services in Winamp 5.63

I installed WinAmp 5.63 on a family member's Windows 8 system She wanted to add Live365 as a service to it. I had written instructions for doing that for Winamp 5.552 previously at Adding Live365 to WinAmp's Online Services List. I found that I had to modify the procedure slightly for Winamp 5.63. I found ml_online.ini was now in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml where Username was the user's account name. The ml_online.ini file contained the following lines:

[Setup]
[ml_online_config]
maxbandwidth=350
minbandwidth=1
[Navigation]
order=10100;221836;222078;222150;222427;222509;222542;22259

Beneath the C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml directory was an omServices subdirectory with files named omService_{0000xxxxxx}.ini where xxxxxx was a sequence of digits, e.g., omService_{0000221836}.ini, which had the following lines in it.

[OnlineService]
id=221836
name=Song of the Day
url=http://www.spinner.com/winamp-mp3-of-the-day
icon=http://download.nullsoft.com/customize/component/2009/1/22/W/icon_image/Mp3_of_the_Day.png
flags=0x00000001
version=3
generation=2

I put a 365.png file to serve as an icon in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml\omServices and created a file omService_{0000000365}.ini and put the following lines in it.

[OnlineService]
id=000365
name=Live365
url=http://www.live365.com
icon=live365.png
flags=0x00000001
version=1
generation=1

When I did so and reopened Winamp, I found that the ml_online.ini had 365 added to the order line as shown below:

[Setup]
[ml_online_config]
maxbandwidth=350
minbandwidth=1
[Navigation]
order=10100;221836;222078;222150;222427;222509;222542;222598;222598;365

Live365 was then at the bottom of the list of online services in WinAmp.

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp/live365] permanent link

Winamp Crashing When Adding Smart View

Whenever my wife tried choosing a preset, such as "Audio by Genre" to organize her music in Winamp, Winamp 5.572 would crash. She would right-click on Local Media, select Add Smart View and then select a preset for "choose a preset", which would cause Winamp to immediately crash. I found a solution at Media Library problems and crash. The solution was to clear the media library even though she didn't have anything in the library.

The solution posted by ScottVickery there is listed below:

One more clue lending credence to this being a problem with a corrupt library. I cleared the Media Library (Winamp Preferences / Media Library / Local Media - Clear Media Library button), then rescanned (Winamp Preferences / Media Library / Local Media / Watch Folders tab - Rescan now button), and, I can again view my Local Media Audio node in the tree.

Clearing the media library doesn't delete the music files from the PC, it just removes them from Winampls media library. In my wife's case, she didn't have any watch folders.

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link

Transferring Winamp 5.572 Info to Another PC

I needed to copy the Winamp settings from my wife's laptop to her desktop system. Both systems are running Windows 7. I found the bookmarks in C:\Users\acctname\AppData\Roaming\Winamp . I also needed to copy her list of online services, since I had added the Live365 Internet Radio to the list of services - see Adding Live365 to WinAmp's Online Services List, so I copied the contents of the C:\Users\acctname\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml directory, including subdirectories from one system to the other. Acctname represents the account name under which she logs on.

Note: you need to display hidden files and folders to see the directory - see Show hidden files for instructions on how to do this under Windows 7, if you don't know how to do so.

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link

Winamp Media Player Silent Installation

I wanted to do a silent install on Winamp. When I went to the Winamp website, I found that the latest version available for download was 5.572. The file available for download was winamp5572_full_emusic-7plus_en-us.exe. Winamp, which was developed by Nullsoft, was acquired by AOL, which is bundling eMusic, which I didn't want. At WinampWithoutEMusic, I learned that you can download versions of Winamp without the eMusic add-on by removing the emusic-7plus_ portion of the file name. By using winamp5572_full_en-us.exe, I was able to get the same version without the eMusic add-on. There's similar information at Super Bowl XL, Download Winamp without Emusic.

After downloading it, I examined it with FileAlyzer . I saw "Nullsoft Install System v2.45.1" within the file. Winamp is installed with the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS), which is to be expected given that Winamp was developed by Nullsoft.

For a default installation, Winamp will be installed in C:\Program Files\Winamp and Winamp Toolbar will be installed in C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar.

A "silent" install can be peformed by using a /S option. Note: it has to be a capital "S", e.g. winamp5572_full_en-us.exe /S. If you use the silent install option, the Winamp Toolbar will be installed by default within Internet Explorer and Firefox. During the installation any open instances of the browsers will be closed automatically. When you reopen the browsers you will see the Winamp toolbar within the browsers.

The Winamp and Winamp Toolbar uninstall strings in the Windows registry for a default installation are at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall are shown below:

Name	UninstallString
Winamp	"C:\Program Files\Winamp\UninstWA.exe"
Winamp Toolbar	"C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar\uninstall.exe"

A silent uninstall can be performed for Winamp with "C:\Program Files\Winamp\UninstWA.exe". A silent uninstall can be performed for the toolbar with "C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar\uninstall.exe" /S. Use a capital "S" for the silent option. Note: a silent uninstall of the Winamp toolbar will close any open browser windows.

One can specify the installation directory with /D=installdirectory I could specify winamp5572_full_en-us.exe /D=C:\Program Files\Audio and Video\Winamp at the command line and the GUI installation method would show the directory I picked. I had to put the C: there for that to occur, though. For a silent install, I could use the following to specify the location:

winamp5572_full_en-us.exe /S /D=C:\Program Files\Audio and Video\Winamp\

Again, I needed to have the C:\ at the beginning of the directory location. Also, don't use quotes even if the directory path has spaces in it and the /D option has to be the last option on the line.

Unfortunately, the toolbar is still installed and goes into its default location of C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar. But I remove it with "C:\Program Files\Winamp Toolbar\uninstall.exe" /S. Unfortunately, that only removes the toolbar from Internet Explorer and I have to manually remove it from Firefox.

References:

1. WinampWithoutEMusic
   Last modified: February 13, 2010
   Jurand Nogiec
2. Super Bowl XL, Download Winamp without Emusic
   Date: February 6, 2006
   INeedAttention.com
3. Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
   Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
4. Winamp Media Player 5.56 Installation
   Date: November 24, 2009
   MoonPoint Support

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link

Installing Winamp Media Player 5.5.6

I installed Winamp Media Player 5.5.6 on my wife's laptop today. I removed the eMusic Promotion offer and the Winamp Toolbar afterwards.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link

Transferring Winamp Settings Between Systems

I needed to transfer Winamp settings from my wife's desktop system to a new laptop system. I had added Live365 Internet Radio to her list of online services in Winamp. To set up Winamp on the new system to have Live365 in the list of online services I used the instructions at Adding Live365 to WinAmp's Online Services List.

She also wanted her bookmarks copied. On her old Windows XP system, her bookmarkes were stored in C:\Program Files\Winamp\Winamp.bm. I couldn't find a file with that name on her new laptop running Windows Vista after Winamp was installed on it. So I asked her to create a bookmark in Winamp while she was logged into her account. I then searched the system again and found a Winamp.bm file was created in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp, where Username was her account name on the laptop. I deleted that file and copied the one from the old system to that location. Note: at first I left the just recently created Winamp.bm file there and pasted in the one from the other system, but that just created a shortcut to the one on the old system, so I deleted the existing one and then copied in the other one. When I opened Winamp on the new laptop, all of her bookmarks were accessible.

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link

Moving WinAmp Playlists from One Computer to Another

WinAmp 5.51 stores its playlists in its Plugins\ml directory, which will usually be C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\ml. The individual playlists will be in .m3u8 files with names like plfxxxx.m3u8 and plfE454.m3u8 where xxxx is a combination of letters and numbers, e.g. plf7501.m3u8. The mapping between the name you give the list and those names is in a playlists.xml file in the same directory.

Sample Playlists.Xml File

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<playlists playlists="2">
<playlist filename="plfE454.m3u8" title="Xmas - Hilary Duff - Santa Claus Lane" id="{C0112AC9-0575-422F-B216-9A104962C563}" songs="11" seconds="2200"/>
<playlist filename="plf7501.m3u8" title="Xmas - The Time-Life Treasury Of Christmas" id="{3463FBFD-C77E-44BD-BC13-6044D2E6BEE7}" songs="45" seconds="8327"/>
</playlists>

So, if you want to copy your playlists from one system to another, copy the .m3u8 files and the playlists.xml files from the first system to the second system.

But what if the music files, e.g. your .mp3 files, are not in the same directory on the second system as the first system? Then you will need to edit each .m3u8 file and update the reference to the actual location of the music files. E.g. if the files were on drive C:\MP3s on the first system, but drive D:\MP3s on the second system, you will need to do a global search and replace on C:\MP3s substituting D:\MP3s for it. You can use any text editor, such as Notepad, which comes with Windows, since the .m3u8 files are just text files.

References:

1. Lost playlist
   Posted on July 30, 2006
   WINAMP.COM | Forums

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link

WinAmp Not Playing Some Wav Files

A family member was unable to play some WAV files on two Windows XP systems using Winamp, though other WAV files played without problem in Winamp and the ones that would not play in Winamp would play in Windows Media Player (WMP). When I checked the codec used in those that would not play, I found that it was MPEG Layer-3 (MP3), while the ones that would play were encoded with PCM. I was able to resolve the problem by associating Winamp's DirectShow codec with WAV files.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp] permanent link