Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Strange Windows Media Player Glitch/Hack

This is topic Strange Windows Media Player Glitch/Hack in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-03-2004, 07:58 PM:

One of my neighbors ran into a strange problem trying to play MP3 files using Windows Media Player. When double-clicking the file to lauch WMP9 nothing would happen. He tried it again repeatedly with no successful launches. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete to bring up Task Manager showed several instances of wmplayer.exe loaded.

Here's the thing that made it seem strange and suspicious. There was a 209kb application showing up in the Windows folder and the temporary internet files folder referring to some website called www2.infamous.com. This thing would show up whenever Windows Media Player was launched. Anti-virus and anti-spyware scans showed no infection, but this thing obviously seemed like something to worry about. I couldn't find any references to anything like this on Symantec's website. The only thing remotely related was a three year old variant of the Nimda worm, and that only showed up with a google search on "infamous".

Anyone know what this thing might be? I have advised my neighbor to get out all his system discs and prepare to format C.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 05-03-2004, 08:36 PM:

If this is the one I think it is, Microsoft has a fix that can be downloaded and installed.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-03-2004, 08:57 PM:

Why use WMP9 to play MP3 files? Use Winamp or iTunes! That's what you get for moving in next to stupid neighbors.[av=m]

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 05-03-2004, 09:03 PM:

Joe, don't be a dumbass. While Winamp is a cool prg, it isn't the choice for mp3. Theeeee best IS WMP9XP! Get a grip!

(Am I banned again?)

>>> Phil

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-03-2004, 09:21 PM:

Yes. WinAmp kills for MP3. Way smaller footprint, doesn't take up half your screen real estate, etc. WMP sucks for everything except watching AVI, WMV and MPG files. It sucks for standalone audio.[av=m]

PS - XP sucks. 2000 Professional is better. Anyone who uses XP for any reason is either a drug addict or perhaps a child abuser. That's just the way it is.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-03-2004, 09:28 PM:

<whine> But Win2000 Pro isn't as pretty! </whine>

C'mon, I'm just trying to help one of my neighbors diagnose a computer problem. In spite of WinAMP being so much better than WMP9, not everyone is going to switch.

Not being the patient sort, I disabled system restore and manually trashed his IE and WM9 installation --to force as close to a clean reinstall of those apps without formatting the hard drive. It is a good thing he had some CAB files with the IE6 and WMP9 installers; Windows update would crash everytime I visited it after those sweeping file deletions. It seemed to work. But I'm still suspicious he has something lurking in there. It may not be that Sasser worm, but I just have doubts the fix could have been that easy.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 05-03-2004, 09:41 PM:

Joe, you're so full of crap you must have brown eyes!

(Now, where did I put my bong?)

>>> Phil