Winamp On Vista
Wednesday 13th December, 2006 16:08 Comments: 0
I should point out that their FAQ says the minimum system requirements for Winamp are "Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003" so I shouldn't have been too surprised when the Program Compatability Assistant appeared, but many programs that work on Windows XP will install and work fine on Vista (like my old version of Paint Shop Pro 7).
So I ignored it, seeing as I've used Winamp pretty much all my life, and because I use a plugin to update my playlist on my website (although the latter is far less important).
Well so far I've played the sample track, and Vista hasn't crashed on me yet. But I have noticed one quirk, which might be what Microsoft were referring to. When I click the "Switch between windows" button (and see all the windows lined up in 3D, or hover over the taskbar to see a thumbnail of the window, I see the old style window! I also can't see any other windows, such as the Video window when playing videos. I normally display Winamp in the "Notification Area" (in Vista speak, Winamp calls it the "System tray", which is what I've always called it), so again it doesn't really matter that much to me.
Seeing as I've used the Winamp Classic skin for the last year or more, it's not really a problem. Winamp appears okay in the mixer, and I can fiddle with the volume controls without any issue, so the music side appears to be sorted. Fullscreen video doesn't look right, a bit too pixellated for my liking, but I use Windows Media Player 11 to watch videos. I'm fairly certain "Drag and Drop" didn't work the first time I started Winamp, which is a slight issue when I access content from network shares, but when I finally get around to mapping the drives it should be okay. But now it's behaving fine! Even if I switch skins or restart it (although switching skins will stop the video playing - I can't remember if it did that before, I'll check next time I'm using XP). Video playback appears to play just like in WMP (i.e. moving it about the screen, the video remains perfectly inside the window, playing without any problems), and the Aero interface blurs the video correctly.
Verdict? It's definitely not entirely Vista-friendly, but it's stable and it plays music, and that's all I'm asking of it right now.
Oh, and for those wondering how easy it is to associate .m3u files with Winamp instead of WMP? It's dead easy with Vista's new "Open With" window (right click the file, select "Open With" -> "Choose Default Program"):
My wishlist*? A gadget. Something that can either sit on my desktop, maybe sit in the top right corner of my screen like normal, or sit on my Sidebar (like the BBC Radio Player gadget by Thomas Pleasance, which I love BTW - make sure you're using "Beta 1.0.10" not "1.0.1" like I initially used). Or is that asking for too much?
Just as I was about to post this, I came across Bodyrox featuring Luciana - Yeah Yeah on Radio 1. You can hear a sample on their myspace page, and you can probably find the full video on YouTube. Probably.
* other than existing feature compatability with Vista
So I ignored it, seeing as I've used Winamp pretty much all my life, and because I use a plugin to update my playlist on my website (although the latter is far less important).
Well so far I've played the sample track, and Vista hasn't crashed on me yet. But I have noticed one quirk, which might be what Microsoft were referring to. When I click the "Switch between windows" button (and see all the windows lined up in 3D, or hover over the taskbar to see a thumbnail of the window, I see the old style window! I also can't see any other windows, such as the Video window when playing videos. I normally display Winamp in the "Notification Area" (in Vista speak, Winamp calls it the "System tray", which is what I've always called it), so again it doesn't really matter that much to me.
Seeing as I've used the Winamp Classic skin for the last year or more, it's not really a problem. Winamp appears okay in the mixer, and I can fiddle with the volume controls without any issue, so the music side appears to be sorted. Fullscreen video doesn't look right, a bit too pixellated for my liking, but I use Windows Media Player 11 to watch videos. I'm fairly certain "Drag and Drop" didn't work the first time I started Winamp, which is a slight issue when I access content from network shares, but when I finally get around to mapping the drives it should be okay. But now it's behaving fine! Even if I switch skins or restart it (although switching skins will stop the video playing - I can't remember if it did that before, I'll check next time I'm using XP). Video playback appears to play just like in WMP (i.e. moving it about the screen, the video remains perfectly inside the window, playing without any problems), and the Aero interface blurs the video correctly.
Verdict? It's definitely not entirely Vista-friendly, but it's stable and it plays music, and that's all I'm asking of it right now.
Oh, and for those wondering how easy it is to associate .m3u files with Winamp instead of WMP? It's dead easy with Vista's new "Open With" window (right click the file, select "Open With" -> "Choose Default Program"):
My wishlist*? A gadget. Something that can either sit on my desktop, maybe sit in the top right corner of my screen like normal, or sit on my Sidebar (like the BBC Radio Player gadget by Thomas Pleasance, which I love BTW - make sure you're using "Beta 1.0.10" not "1.0.1" like I initially used). Or is that asking for too much?
Just as I was about to post this, I came across Bodyrox featuring Luciana - Yeah Yeah on Radio 1. You can hear a sample on their myspace page, and you can probably find the full video on YouTube. Probably.
* other than existing feature compatability with Vista