HOWTO: Enable Winamp on Firm computers ~ Deloitte Consulting Forum

Consultant Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 14 Location: Chicago

As some of you might know, Winamp was disabled on our computers a while back. I was more than a little peeved at this (due in no small part to the fact that they chose to pick on the Winamp because of its vulnerabilities, when [AHEM] Windows XP has so many holes you could grate cheese on it). Anyway, I could not immediately figure out a way around this restriction. The policy prevented access to "winamp.exe", "C:\Program Files\Winamp\*" and anything with the same hash or GUID as winamp. So even copying to a new location or renaming the executable didn't work. But alas I have committed myself to defeating this policy restriction and have figured it out.

On to the instructions.

Step 1: Open the registry editor (Start Menu -> Run -> "regedit" -> [Enter])

Step 2: Navigate down the tree to the following:
My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\
Safer\CodeIdentifiers\0\Hashes\

Step 3: Delete all entries and folders within "Hash"

Step 4: Create a new folder where you want to install winamp (say, C:\winamp, C:\winamp5, etc.)

Step 5: Navigate to the folder in which winamp was installed (usually C:\Program Files\Winamp) and copy all the contents to the new folder you just created.

Step 6: Voila! Run the executable or make links to it from elsewhere (start menu, desktop) and it should run fine.

Suck it uncle d.

Discuss issues or problems you might have with this fix, or other workarounds below. Post if you have success with this method.

This worked....awesome! Thanks!

Manager Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 38

So many holes you could grate cheese - classic!

Thanks for the tip - but if you use WinAmp that means you probably don't have an iPod which in the consulting world makes you a LOSER.

Manager Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 64

True, but compared to windows media player, winamp is a godsend.

The new Windows Media player is pretty solid and usable. I'm an iTunes guy though, though they all eat up memory like it's a discontinued chocolate fritter.

I switched over to Quintessential Player http://www.quinnware.com/ and it's been my favorite player since. It also pairs with SysMetrix http://www.xymantix.com/sysmetrix if you want to make your machine snazzy (and slower).

Manager Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 64

Hey, if we're going to plug players, the one to rule them all is foobar2000. It does everything that the $40 add-on to the player you mentioned does, and then some. The default interface is spartan, but the whole setup is easy to configure and the player can do so much that it's not worth trying to list everything it can do.

Thanks for the thread!!! Was very pissed off I couldn't install it.

I use winamp to listen to Shoutcast radio and TV broadcasts... but I also love the playlist organization.

... and the visualizations ...

I guess they pushed out another update to re-disable Winamp, but these instructions worked perfectly (again).

Thanks milton.

Analyst Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 3

There's an even simpler solution - you can just rename the folder that Winamp is installed in from "Winamp" to anything else, such as "Winamp Player". The lock is on the directory. To test it out, you can put any executable in the Winamp install folder and it won't run. So just rename the folder and you'll be all set.

What a goofy "software lock"...