Winamp Backup Tool (v3.6.4 available, released on 19-12-2022)

[osmosis]

Hmm does this need to be installed or would it possible to get it in a Portable flavor for use with USB sticks, etc.?

[Koopa]

You can simply put the main exe file on a USB stick, the installer isn't needed, but settings will be always saved in same dir like Winamp settings, though.

[osmosis]

Nice! Thanks.

[Koopa]

Winamp Backup Tool v1.0 Beta 11.7 available

1.0 Beta 11.7:

- fixed visual quirks in finish page groupboxes, when using a classic windows theme
- fixed restoration of invalid Winamp Pro registration data
- fixed restoration of backed up Winamp Pro data not possible, if Pro registry entries were not present
- [Installer] fixed visual quirks in finish page groupbox, when using a classic windows theme
- [Misc] updated a couple of language files

I wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

-Chris

[ryerman]

Thanks for this great tool! It just saved me from a lot of frustration. I think I'll use it just about every time I close Winamp from now on.

Jim

[thegoodtimes]

Sorry to be a pain but this tool is AMAZING and I want to be sure of 1 thing... does it backup 'play count' and 'last played'?

Also, just a little thing you sensible people might be able to help me out with. I think I have been a bit daft in having WinAmp installed on C:\ but having it look at my music library which I have located on D:\
Have just realised this may be daft because IF this greta tool backs up my play counts etc - in order to ever restore them or transfer them to another PC I would need to have 2 drives as the path to the files would be D:\
So in effect, am I making a problem for myself by not having my music on C:\?

Cheers for the answer to (1) and the advice on (2).

Kudos to the Backup Tool writers!!!!

thegoodtimes

[Koopa]

Sorry to be a pain but this tool is AMAZING and I want to be sure of 1 thing... does it backup 'play count' and 'last played'?

It is able to back up the whole library database, which includes play count and last played as well, as other things like ratings etc.

....IF this greta tool backs up my play counts etc - in order to ever restore them or transfer them to another PC I would need to have 2 drives as the path to the files would be D:\
So in effect, am I making a problem for myself by not having my music on C:\?

Winamp's library is completely based on absolute file paths. So ideally, if you've stored your music files on e.g. D:\Music\ before, you should use the same path structure when you restore your database or transfer your Winamp configuration to another PC.

Otherwise you have to do some fine tuning, before all will work again. If the music was located on d:\Music if you made the backup and you decide to store your music on c:\Music in future, you must set the new location under Preferences > Media Library > Local Media > Watched Folders and make a rescan after your restored the data with the tool.

I'm glad that you like the tool, maybe it was worth to spend so much time on it, hehe.

[thegoodtimes]

Thanks Koopa.

Like the tool? Its ABSOLUTELY SUPERB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!!

Anyway, Yeah, you verified my horror about having my music on a D:\ path.

You are right in having to do a rescan if I moved it to a C:\ path but correct me if I am wrong - that would have your awesome tool useless to me as I would not be able to retreive the playcount and history of the track settings as they would have all be backed up to path showing D:\.

So in your valuable opinion to me - would you agree it is far better for me to simply move all the tracks over to C:\ now and start again with my playcounts because if I continue much longer there will come a point were a format and restore of data will mean I have lost the playcounts anyway as the backed up data is looking for D:\

Your expertise and opinion are much appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

thegoodtimes

[Koopa]

Honestly I don't see any point in moving all to C:\. I'm using the same system for storing my music for an age.

Winamp is installed in:

D:\Programme\Winamp

Winamp Settings are stored under:

C:\Users\Chris\Appdata\Roaming\Winamp

and my music is stored in subfolders of:

D:\Musik\

When I format my system or use a new HDD whatever, I simply put my music on D:\Musik again, install Winamp and restore my database with the tool.

I even was able to port all my settings from a Windows XP system to Windows 7 (keep in mind that both systems use different paths for storing the data) and all worked fine, I just used the same root for my music again.

You do not have to use the same drive letter for Winamp and your music, that isn't necessary for restoration. It's only important, that your music is located on the same dir, like it was when you ran the backup.

So if you use D:\, I fail to see why you should rebuild your library on C:\ instead.

It doesn't matter on which PC you restore the data, just make sure, that the main path of your music is the same, when you're running the restoration, otherwise you need fine tuning.

That Winamp saves all stuff with absolute paths isn't really flexible, but I guess the rules for a perfect restoration of your data aren't that bad, even for Music stored on other file locations, like D:\ in your case.

And thanks for the kind work, II'm always glad to get some positive feedback.

[thegoodtimes]

Yeah Koopa, I completely understand and agree with everything you said.

i suppose I am just being over cautious in that I would like my play counts to be with me a long time and just feared that if ever I moved everything to a laptop for example I would not be able to resotre the playcounts etc as the paths from the backup would still be looking for a D: drive.

But yeah, I think I will keep my music on D: as I like it to be kept away from my operating system anyway - better still it gets backed up every weekend to E: LOL

That is amazing that setting from XP translated to windows7 so flawlessly - good work.

Just as a little bit of info which you probably already know. I remember looking at all this a while ago before I found your amazing tool and remember reading somewhere that you could get a hex reader to look at the ML library and determine the hex numbers for (example) D:\ then do a complete automated sweep to convert (via hex) that path to C:\. think it was a possible solution to anyone getting stuck with paths on a wrong drive althought it was quite a chore and a little complicated. Just thought I would mention it out of interest.

Anyway, gonna stick with my music on D: thanks for the sound advice.

And lastly, not enough people give thanks and kudos to kind people like yourself for sharing something they have made and I always believe in offering my thanks.

regards.
thegoodtimes

[MrSinatra]

i store all my music on an external usb raid device which i map as M:\audio\music\

M:\ always seems to be available on any machine of mine or a friends.

[Alianesque]

Win XP still a problem ?

Hello,

This tool is a great idea. I'm trying to move my winamp configuration from my old XP computer to a new Vista one.

I tried your tool on my Win XP configuration. It crashed the first time (automatic configuration). The second time I removed "Orgler" and "Visualization" from the list. It went the entire process (as it seems...) and then went into cycle mode... I tried restarting the system but I couldn't do anything else than Ctrl-Alt-Suppr and kill the process.

Any ideas ?

Thanks,

Michel

PS : my version of Winamp is 5.572 should I upgrade first ?

[Koopa]

Hmm, I cannot reproduce any crash here. Can you upload the Winamp_Backup_Tool.log file after it has crashed? The file is located in same dir, like your Winamp.ini file.

Also do you mean all visualization settings or specific settings?

[Koopa]

Just a small status update, the project is far away from being dead. I was very busy with real life related things and the time for the tool is rare.

Nevertheless, I already worked on a couple of improvements during the last weeks. Most important and time eating thing is to bring the documentation file to a state, where it's really worth to be called 'documentation'.

I've also added some more GUI tweaks, the first is a 'Help' button, which allows you to open the documentation file directly from within the tool:



Additionally, I've addressed one of these things, which were bugging me, namely the file size of the installer and possible issues with localized documentation files in future.

So instead of shipping a large chm file directly and later ship a lot of translated docu files, which will bloat the installer, I've implemented a pretty clever download system for the documentation. The code itself wasn't the big problem, finding a solution, which requires as less language pack impact as possible and as less massive code changes was the real challenge.

Once I've finished the documentation stuff, we get closer to a final release (and yeah, the nasty UAC stuff must be addressed as well)

If people already visit my website, all I can say is that I apologize, that the whole site is still a poor work in progress. I'm trying my best to find some time to finish these things as soon as possible.

-Chris

[nhustak]

Donated! Thank you for the FIRST smooth transfer of WinAmp to a new machine. Thank you thank you thank you!