WACUP -- the Winamp Community Update Project -- released a preview version of the music player to the public yesterday.

WACUP is a third-party modified version of the music player Winamp that is based on Winamp 5.666 patched and not the recently leaked Winamp 5.8 Beta.

Radionomy, the owner of Winamp, released the beta officially as a reaction to the leak to provide interested users with a clean copy of the application to avoid malware abuse.

The company revealed that it had plans to release a new version of the music player in 2019; whether that will be the case or not remains to be seen. Considering that there have not been any new releases, except for the release of the leaked beta since Radionomy acquired Winamp, it is anyone's guess whether 2019 will see the release of a new official Winamp.

Winamp Community Update Project

The first preview release of WACUP requires Windows 7 or newer. The program will install Winamp 5.666 patched on the system if not installed already as it requires that version. The lead developer of the project suggests that users install the preview into a separate directory to avoid conflicts with existing Winamp installations.

WACUP is provided as an installer at this point in time that may install Winamp WACUP edition on the system or copy it for portable use.

It includes the following features that set it apart from Winamp 5.666:

Includes crash and security fixes.

Support for Big Bento modern skins and native cPro skins.

Tweaks that improve the loading and shutdown time of the program.

Plugin, command-line, and media format support improvements.

You find the most recent changelog here.

WACUP displays a skin selection screen on first run. It features classic and modern skins for Winamp. Note that there is also a checked box that allows the program to check for updates for tools used by WACUP; you can disable that and either update manually only or run manual checks for updates in the application.

The player opens with the iconic Llama Whippin jingle and the classic Winamp interface (using the selected skin).

If you used Winamp before you will feel right at home; nothing changed interface-wise, every feature and button is still there.

What you may notice is the improved startup and shutdown speed, and better stability while running the audio player on the system.

Obviously, you have to integrate your music library in the player again if you did not upgrade an existing installation of Winamp on the device.

The project team plans to release bi-weekly beta versions and new preview versions once a month.

Closing Words

WACUP is an interesting alternative for Winamp users if the project team continues development and manages to release new versions regularly. There is certainly a market for classic media players like Winamp.

I stick to AIMP and MusicBee for now.

Now You: do you use Winamp or another audio player? (via Deskmodder)

Summary Author Rating 4 based on 2 votes Software Name WACUP Winamp Operating System Windows Software Category Multimedia Landing Page https://getwacup.com/

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