Winamp 5.54 + Vista = UAC shows up at start, annoying...

[TiTi]

Hi guys,

I notice something horrible since the lastest update :
now I see the UAC popup each time I launch Winamp.
This was not happenning before on my Vista system.

First I was kind of afraid, so i click 'cancel', but winamp was still launch in background and playing (i'm using a plugin to play automatically from last time...), wtf?
So what was the uac popup for ?
I'm a dev so i figure it out, but it could be disturbing for an average user...

I manage to figure out from where that was comming : it is because winamp is checking for updates at start-up (option in general preferences...).
I desactivate that because having the popup at each winamp start is annoying, but I really hope dev. are going to fix that!

Thanks bye bye,

a french guy

[TiTi]

doh!

Today the uac popup shows up again, so it is not the check for updates ?

[DJ Egg]

Winamp 5.54
* Improved: Vista elevation (fixes: installing skins, filetype reg, Pro reg)

It's possibly the "Restore file associations at Winamp start-up" setting in "Prefs -> File Types" that's calling the UAC prompt at Winamp startup.

Note that settings in Prefs -> File Types require Winamp to be able to write to the registry before they can take effect. Winamp needs to be in an elevated state to be able to write to the registry on an account with UAC enabled in Vista. This was broken in 5.531 and earlier, but is now fixed.

[TiTi]

Thanks for answering.

I try that (with "Restore file associations at Winamp start-up" checked) :
-associate *.mp3 with VLC
-launch winamp
=>No UAC, doh!

I did some tests but now I'm totally lost : no UAC anymore at launch... until it's gonna popup again :-(
Their should be a text to detail the reason i need to allow higher permissions, not just saying "winamp required your persmission...." ; for example : "need to modify file association in windows registery".

(Indeed a change on this checkbox trigger the elevated state popup, well not excatly : have to change menu)

I also try to recheck the update on startup thing : still no more UAC

[DJ Egg]

Yeah, welcome to Vista! :-D
Crazy, isn't it?!

I just use the true admin account on Vista
and therefore never see any UAC crap.
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk...r_activate.htm

[TiTi]

Well there must be an explanation.

I might be one of the very few people to say that by now, but I'm sorry vista UAC is very good.
I'm using daily ubuntu & Vista, and i really prefer vista UAC for more than one reason.
There was some glitches at the beginning I now.
But please don't listen to the pseudo-experts who tell you to remove UAC...

[DJ Egg]

I never needed UAC on Win 95/98/ME/2k/XP, so what makes MS think that I need it now?

Sure, maybe it's a good thing for newbies...

As for the matter at hand, sorry, but I can't reproduce it.
I switched to my other standard user account, and get no UAC prompt at Winamp startup.

[gaekwad2]

Originally posted by DJ Egg
Sure, maybe it's a good thing for newbies...

...because newbies know when to click allow...

Apparently there are tools to switch UAC into "quiet" mode (no popups, but still preventing some file system/registry modifications and running IE in protected mode).

[TiTi]

DJ Egg you're so naive...

You're saying you know what you are doing, so you don't need a warning message.

And the day a program will try to discretly do something it is not supposed to do (like removing windows files, changing your GPU clock, ...), you won't see anything.
That's why today there is so much spywares & virus.
Most of warez include virus hidden into cracked programs.

What in the world you guys want to turn off UAC ?
In linux nobody (at least not most of users) want to turn off the root account / privileged mode.
But as I said there is more pain in linux : you have to retype your password each time. Mine is about ~20 characters so it's fucking boring.

///

I'll try to reproduce the UAC popup this afternoon.

[Metshrine]

UAC popup occurs here on Vista Ultimate x86 SP1 and 5.54. Its really annoying. That, and even after winamp closes, elevator.exe CONTINUES TO RUN giving me popups at random times.

[DJ Egg]

Weird.
Is the Winamp Agent enabled maybe, and 'maintain file associations' checkmarked?
(Winamp -> Prefs -> File Types)

When you right-click the Winamp desktop/shortcut icon, and select 'Properties'
then go to the Security tab,
highlight your Username, and click Edit,
What permissions are checkmarked?
Modify, Read & execute, Read, Write...?

Have you installed any extra 3rd-party Winamp plugins, and if so which ones?
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....161361#plugins

[TiTi]

1 : I do not have winamp agent ! I don't need this, I uncheck the option each time I'm installing a new winamp version.

2 : I did some tests with the 'maintain file associations' checkbox : checked or not, no more uac popup.

3 : Permissions :
Read & Execute
Read

4 : Plugins : see file

[DJ Egg]

Yeah, quite a few 3rd-party plugins there:
gen_resumerfr.dll, gen_sripper.dll (eek!), gen_wa5samurizeinfo.dll, WinAmpSamurize.dll, BubbleDancer.dll, vis_smoke.dll, vis-tx3.dll

Any of them could be responsible (assuming it's still happening),
especially if any of them are trying to read/write settings to the regsitry or in the "Program Files\Winamp" folder instead of %appdata%\winamp

[TiTi]

vis_smoke.dll
vis-tx3.dll
BubbleDancer.dll
=>Visualisation plugins
These are not responsable, because I'm not using them since some time now ^^ (visualisation off at start)

gen_resumerfr.dll
=>for restart where i was before quit (song playing, automatically start playing, ...)

gen_wa5samurizeinfo.dll, WinAmpSamurize.dll
=>didn't know there were installed ; it's because i'm using 'samurize' ; I'm not using the data provided by theses plugins into my samurize client. But maybe there is a check.

gen_sripper.dll
=> why "eek!" ?
maybe, cause it wasn't correctly saving the directory where to save files, it was always reseted to : C:\Users\Public\Music\....

Well as you said could be a 3rd-party issue but i did not update those plugins and i didn't have the uac popup before.
So ... it might be gen_resumerfr.dll, gen_sripper.dll or samurize ; but i don't think.

The thing is ... I can reproduce the 'bug' !
The UAC popup dosn't appears anymore (at winamp start), whatever config I'm trying :-(

[DJ Egg]

As I already said...

1) Elevation of Winamp was broken/non-existent on Vista prior to 5.54

2) We don't support 3rd-party plugins

If one of said plugins is old and doesn't respect reading/writing settings in %appdata%\winamp and is trying to write them to %ProgramFiles%\Winamp instead, then you'll get the UAC prompt.

All plugins are loaded by Winamp at startup, regardless of whether they're being used or not.

The 'eek' was for streamripper
(I guess you haven't seen the reference in the forum rules)

[billyskank]

Hi, I was getting the UAC admin password prompt on every startup of Winamp too. Just to let you know, unchecking the box "Restore file associations at Winamp startup" stopped this from happening.

That's Options -> Preferences -> File Types. Thanks to DJ Egg for that information.

[DJ Egg]

Just to add...

Note that this is now expected behaviour.

It was actually broken in 5.531 and earlier.

If some other app has stolen any file associations from Winamp's associated filetypes list, then Winamp will restore them on startup when that option is checkmarked. For it to do this, it needs to write to the registry, and therefore requires permission from UAC.

In 5.531 and earlier, stolen associations wouldn't be restored, because the elevation feature wasn't even implemented.

[stevem99]

I just installed the new lite version on Vista. I get the UAC prompt. I unchecked everything on File Types preferences
and unchecked check for new version and I still get the uac prompt.

Anything else left to try?

[stevem99]

I fixed it with the Microsoft Application Compatability Toolkit. No more UAC popup.

[traycer]

Originally posted by DJ Egg
I never needed UAC on Win 95/98/ME/2k/XP, so what makes MS think that I need it now?

Remember when we didn't need firewalls or anti-virus or even passwords to login to our accounts? We didn't need them back then... why should we have them now?!? Privilege separation is a good thing from a security and privacy viewpoint. Every serious OS has it... the problem with Microsoft is that they did not enforce it or encourage it until Vista (at least on a consumer-oriented desktop OS). OS X, Linux, any flavour of UNIX, etc. already have their equivalent of "UAC"... Microsoft is just late to the party.

Anyway, back to the OP's issue...

Originally posted by DJ Egg
If some other app has stolen any file associations from Winamp's associated filetypes list, then Winamp will restore them on startup when that option is checkmarked. For it to do this, it needs to write to the registry, and therefore requires permission from UAC.

Not true. File type associations do not necessarily require elevation to change. Every other program I own can maintain their associations without elevation. Heck, I can even manually edit it from my unprivileged user account without requiring elevation.

Winamp is probably going about it the wrong way... perhaps attempting to change a system-wide default association list, instead of the per-user association? Winamp should not be attempting to change it for everyone on the system, just for the user running Winamp. No elevation is required for that. Should be an easy fix.

[traycer]

Originally posted by TiTi
The UAC popup dosn't appears anymore (at winamp start), whatever config I'm trying :-(

I believe there are actually two tasks that require elevation. I noticed this the first time I ran 5.54. I dismissed the first UAC prompt because I didn't know what it was doing. A second one immediately popped up. I dismissed that one as well. Meanwhile, Winamp was happily streaming audio in the background.

I restarted Winamp and again received a UAC prompt. This time, I supplied the Administrator password. Like before, a second prompt immediately popped up. I dismissed that one without a password.

Restarting Winamp a third time: only one UAC prompt comes up each time. Disabling the file association check removes that prompt. Now I do not see any UAC prompts when running 5.54.

So I suspect there is some task that Winamp wants to perform only the very first time it runs. Then it no longer needs to do it. However, the file association check is performed at every start, which accounts for another UAC prompt (and is not needed, as I point out in my previous post).

This is probably why you are no longer seeing the UAC prompt.

[DJ Egg]

@traycer

I was talking about me personally. I do NOT need UAC. If other less experienced/advanced users do, then so be it.

You could be right about Winamp writing associations to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT instead of HKEY_USERS

We'll look into it...

[traycer]

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of "ACCESS DENIED" while using ProcMon to watch Winamp attempting to open a bunch of HKCR entries.

[ryn05]

Go to my computer > C: > program files > winamp, then right click on the winamp icon > properties.

Go to the "Compatibility" tab, then select it to run under Windows XP SP2. Click OK.

No more UAC.

[brody456]

what you can do is go to control panel and accounts and family safety and select accounts and trun off the uac controll will save the head ache

[cretka]

I am experiencing the Visat UAC prompt with Winamp which is really annoying but I can live with it. What is more annoying is in addition my Razer keyboard's multimedia controls i.e. launch, stop, pause, play etc. etc. no longer work.

I have tried many different combinations of 'fixes' found on the net i.e. uncheck files associations, uncheck check for updates, do not install sonic cd /recording/ripping component etc. etc. and none of these resolve this.

I can live with the UAC message at startup but the fact that my Razer keyboard is now a basic 101 keyboard is disappointing. I do not wish to disable UAC.

I am also a bit peeved as I have actually bought the Pro version of Winamp and am not a 'freebie' user.

Any ideas before I switch to another app?

[jwdaigle]

Originally posted by billyskank
Hi, I was getting the UAC admin password prompt on every startup of Winamp too. Just to let you know, unchecking the box "Restore file associations at Winamp startup" stopped this from happening.

That's Options -> Preferences -> File Types. Thanks to DJ Egg for that information.

Yup, fixed it for me too. Thanks to DJ Egg. This had been driving me nuts for weeks now as well.

[Jan-kun]

Hi everybody, before my post, I want to apologise for my poor english, I hope all of you wil unsderstand me XD!!

Well, my problem is (or was) the same as yours. I notice the UAC popup each time I run the latest Winamp version (5.552). And as Titi, "This was not happenning before on my Vista system." I tried all this:

1. I unchecked "Restore file associations at Winamp startup"

2. I changed the atributes of the Winamp Shortcuts and the
Main program icon to "Run as Administrator" and
"Compatibility with Windows XP SP2"

3. I only have Installed de gen_lyrics.dll plugin

4. What else... Oh yeah, I have Windows vista Basic and
I´m always working on the administrator account, BUT
NOT THE REAL ONE THAT DJ EGG HAD ACTIVATED

5. When I installed this new version, I uncheked the Winamp
Agent and the Library (I never used it)

6. AND... NOTHING!!!, I still have seeing the UAC popup
each time I run Winamp

What can I do now? Please, help this poor soul that only want to listen music while the life is still going on... Hah, just kidding XD!!

Thanks, Jan-kun

[DJ Egg]

Does it still happen if you remove the 3rd-party gen_lyrics.dll file?

[dwork]

This is happening on my brand new HP laptop with Win7 Home Premium, fresh winamp install. Its been happening since the first run. I've tried all the recommended work-arounds.

Run as administrator: no luck
Compatibility mode: no luck
uncheck restore file associations: no luck
3rd party plugins: none (see: fresh install)
agent is not running (unchecked during install)

This is extremely annoying.

--------------

Also, the history plugin's 'remember playback position' feature should really be a checkbox. Not being to disable this feature without uninstalling a preinstalled winamp plugin AND losing the ability to track song plays in the process is horrible.

Enqueue & Play is also not working. The track is added to the playlist, but does not play. I have to open the Winamp window and manually start the track.

[dingelen]

I think I solved the problem, for me at least...

1. Start the explorer and go to the executable winamp.exe
2. right click it and select the bottom function (I think it's options or configuartion or something, but I'm not sure because I use a dutch version of windows).
3. go to the compatibility tab
4. in the bottom there is an option "run as administrator" greyed out so you can not disable it
5. press the button under it "change for all users"
6. now you can deselect the run as administrator
7. press OK and OK and run Winamp.

It should work now!!!

[ronduncan]

Originally Posted by dingelen

I think I solved the problem, for me at least...

1. Start the explorer and go to the executable winamp.exe
2. right click it and select the bottom function (I think it's options or configuartion or something, but I'm not sure because I use a dutch version of windows).
3. go to the compatibility tab
4. in the bottom there is an option "run as administrator" greyed out so you can not disable it
5. press the button under it "change for all users"
6. now you can deselect the run as administrator
7. press OK and OK and run Winamp.

It should work now!!!

Hey everyone, thanks original poster for bring up this prob..

This is what ended up working for me, THANKS

-Ron

[kitgerrits]

I'm having the same issue with Windows 7 and WinAMP version 5.581
Enabling Windows XP SP2 compatibility actually resulted in a Guru Meditation Error.:
#001C.00180210.3 Null object called in scripts/menualign.maki

.All Audio files have been assigned to WinAMP and I have disabled the check plug-in.

UAC tells me winAMP wants to write to the harddisk, but I have found no write activity I can attribute to WinAMP on my C:\ drive

[hhgygy]

Same problem with version 5.601, and none of the recommended solutions works.

[hhgygy]

Now, thanks to a parallel thread, I have a solution that seems to be working. I simply deleted winamp.ini. Then at the first time I started Winamp, the annoying message came up but when I answered yes it never came up again (for three or four restarts at least)

[tedshaw]

I have been having this problem also. It was driving me nutz!

I finally fixed this problem by:

Complete Uninstall (media player + profiles)

Even though the profiles were supposed to be deleted, they were not. (Could be because I'm on a windows server domain). Anyway I had to delete the profiles manually.

c:\users\<account name>\appdata\roaming\winamp


Hope that helps everyone!

[dsmtoday]

Like tedshaw, I found that deleting my profile fixed the problem. However, I wanted to figure out exactly what the problem was. By process of elimination, I narrowed it down to the winamp.ini file, then down to a specific line in the win.ini file.

In the [Winamp] section, look for the line like this

config_extlist = APE:APL:CDA:FLAC:MP3:NSA:OGG:wav:WMA:WV:M3U

Yours might be slightly different. However, if you see NSA in there, delete it. That fixed it for me. Anyway, if that doesn't fix it for you, just delete the entire line, start up WinAmp, and then go into the preferences and reselect the File Types you want associated.

I think the problem with the UAC prompt occurs if you have an extension listed in the above list and you no longer have the plugin for it. Maybe. Just guessing.

Good luck!

[lahongvan]

Hi, I was getting the UAC admin password prompt on every startup of Winamp too. Just to let you know, unchecking the box "Restore file associations at Winamp startup" stopped this from happening.

That's Options -> Preferences -> File Types. Thanks to DJ Egg for that information

[dsmtoday]

Originally Posted by lahongvan

Just to let you know, unchecking the box "Restore file associations at Winamp startup" stopped this from happening.

Yeah, I tried that, didn't work for me. Since I removed the non-existent filetype from that list, I'm now able to leave that option checked and I still don't get the UAC.

[koan00]

Thanks for this last couple of posts. I too just unchecked the NSA/NSV and no more prompt. What a pain to find. I almost tossed out old trusty winamp.