WMP + DRM + WinMX = Bad Medicine

[ñòóKýçrÕôK]

We had a user come into the help room last night with an issue of her DVD burners had quit working "all of a sudden". Usually unless the roms are dirty and need a cleaning this isn't going to happen and even then not usually overnight. This user stated that she used VLC and WMP. When I saw WMP I had a feeling I knew what was going on. Some of you may remember a few months ago I had a problem with WinMX not seeing all my folders and even if I added all those folders manually it couldn't see the files in them. Turns out the only ones WinMX couldn't see were the music files I had tagged with WMP or ripped with WMP. Anyway I asked this user to copy one of her video files out of the WMP "watched" folder to desktop and try and burn her dvd from the desktop source instead of the folder. Turns out that worked like a charm. She burned from the desktop source her dvd was fine. Following that she burned from the movie folder again and the dvd was unusable. So it looks like WMP is going to be doing the DRM dirtywork for Microsoft.

My advice should weird things like this start happening to you is to first check your files copied into a new folder or location to be sure they aren't corrupted. If they aren't corrupted I'd suggest creating new folders and moving those files out of the WMP edited folders (nearest I can tell it's coding or making these folder themselves and not the files hidden from p2p applications and burning software). Then I would suggest uninstalling WMP(Windows Media Player) completely in control panel. My version was WMP11. Not sure what version the user last night used but whichever it is it is apprently taken over by Microsoft's DRM.

[GhostShip]

Interesting Nook's and very concerning 

Most people even on older versions of WMP would be better off uninstalling it anyway and replacing it with something like win-amp, this is primarily for a similar reason, there are certain file types that windows media player supports such as .asf files etc that can be used to deliver a virus payload using the DRM checking feature.

This works by the interesting action of the file indicating it is DRM protected and having a URL embedded in it that instructs WMP to connect to a remote site and instead of downloading DRM licence information you end up with a trojan specially designed to infect your machine , I investigated this problem some years ago but there are machines out there that are still an open door for such a trick, by installing a stand alone player and removing the default asf file opening as windows media player you completely remove the problem.

Most people who actually got hit by this swore they clicked on an MP3, what was really happening was that the title had .mp3 in the name with a quantity of spaces that ensured the end of the file was missed in the list view window sort of like this :

          top pop sounds .mp3                                                                      .asf

No windows media player, no liability 


 

[thunderwinds]

I never updated from WMP 9, though I stopped using it to tag files sometime back.  I noticed that everytime I did I would have trouble staying in chat rooms, unless I restarted winmx.  Since then I have changed all the file associations.    Indeed the only reason i still have WMP is the home movie some friends made using windows movie maker, it will only play in WMP.

[SamSeeSam]

question how do you uninstall wmp? o.0

I never figured otu how

Is it somewhere in add remove programs?

[ñòóKýçrÕôK]

WMP 10 and 11 can be uninstalled from control panel add/remove porgrams, for good measure I even went into add/remove windows components and unticked it there too. The WMP folder will still be in C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player where the original version of WMP is still located just the executable is not reffered to any longer. mplayer2.exe is what it is called in mine. That actually still works and is DRM free.