I am not sure whether this is common knowledge or not, but I recently discovered a way to disable Windows Media Player AKA (a total bastard virus like application).
I have been an avid user of "Media Player Classic" as part of the "K-Lite Codec Pack" for some years now for all of my video watching, and I am still a happy user of Winamp for the little audio I ever listen too.
The other day I discovered that someone had used my PC and had played back some kind of audio file (I had recently re-installed my PC and forgot to install Winamp). I was really pissed off as "The Virus" then tried to play back everything under the sun, and I hate it with a passion.
I already knew that un-installing it does absolutely nothing at all, and it can be disabled by creating a file of any type you like, placing it into "The Virus's" folder and re-naming it very quickly after deleting the original - thus replacing "The Virus" with a dud file. This works very often, and I have had success in the past with this method. However no luck this time (could it be SP3 ?.) "The Virus" actually went as far as replacing my "dud" file with itself before my very eyes - one moment a 1KB file then it was back again. FYI it does this if you delete it, feel free to give it ago, watch in amazement as "The Virus" appears again out of nowhere - this is why I call it "The Virus" I have witnessed hundred of Viruses do this.
Again I looked into ways to remove it, but found nothing. I tried to replace the entire folder with a "dud", but again this didn’t work. This is the point I thought about folders and permissions
This works perfectly.You will of course need access to the permissions tab within XP, if you are not an administrator you cant do it, but their are ways round that problem. If you have XP home, you only get access to the permissions tab when running in "safe mode" (unless you do a hack). You will also have had to turn off the "simple file sharing" option within windows (Windows explorer, tools, folder options, view, bottom option).
You then need to navigate to C:\program files you will see the folder in question - called "windows media player" right click on it, and choose "properties" then the "security" tab, click on the "advanced" button and un-tick the option "inherit from the parent the per...." click "remove", click "apply", click on the "auditing" tab, un-tick the same box, click "apply", click "OK", click on the "owner" tab, choose your "username" then tick the box, click "OK, and then click "yes". At this point your user is the only user on your PC that can even open the folder, and due to the other things that have been done this has done exactly the same thing to all of the files and folder contained within, and can not be over ruled by the settings that affect the "program files" folder. Now all we need to do is remove your user, and "The Virus" can not be run. As we just did, you will need to go back to the properties of the folder "windows media player", go to the "security" tab and click "remove", click "OK", and "finally" click "yes".
Now try double clicking on the folder "windows media player", you will find that you don’t have access to the program or any other files contained within. Feel free to rejoice, and perhaps re-install the media player(s) that you want for the last time, knowing full well that "The Virus" has been destroyed for good. Just don’t download any future "windows media player" versions, and possibly disable "automatic updates".
I hope that you enjoy being rid of "The Virus" for good, and that my description, is accurate and easy to follow. You may also ask me questions about why I hate "The Virus" as much as I do, and just incase you missed it before, I will give you 3 reasons - no more should be needed.
1). I don’t want it, so I should be able to remove it if I choose to do so.
2). Uninstalling it is a joke, it does nothing at all.
3). Deleting files stops all programs from working except for viruses, malicious software, and "windows media player". I remove anything that puts itself back automatically, which is why i regard WMP as "The Virus".
Andy
