NO wavs.........no way and no how

[MwAnDiP404]

HI!!!!!! i just heard about this place..............like this is the guru of all comp knowledge right.. right. okay heres my problem.....i cant play .wav files....PERIOD. so i got curious, i had to check it all out! so i went to C:Program Files\plus!(does that exsist?)\themes and to all the gruiling horror nothing was in there......empty.....so i freaked out and the first thing came to mind was that i thought i had a virus.....but it was impossible.......i was playing .wav files only a couple of days ago and now there gone.....i also checked C:\wondows\media\and to my hope, there was some wav files!!! basically i thought the themes was f***ed up, but no no no. i clicked on a single .wav file and it said this:
"Windows cannot play the (directory) .wav file. It may be damaged or may not be a valid sound file"
so whats going on?! is it a virus or was a simple malfunction?
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

[Budfred]

Welcome to PCGuide!!

First some questions. You fear a virus, but have you run a virus scan lately?? If you haven't, download one of these programs:

http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15179

and run the scanner immediately. While you are at that thread, you may want to download and run an Anti-trojan and anti-spyware program too.

Then, let us know more about your system and anything you changed recently including any downloads, installs and so on. It sounds like you are using something like Win98, but let us know specifically. There are some real good problem solvers here, but we need info to do it.

Budfred;)

[MwAnDiP404]

ughh.......ive got a:
Win98
GeForce2 mx 400 64mb
256ram
AMD K6-2 500
Sound Blaster LIVE! (thats all it says)
a 30 gig hard drive
a secondary only 2 gig *bleh*
i havent d/l anything as of late..........actually nothing at ALL........ughhhh......thats pretty much it.just installeda few games nothing rlly serious...all of the games were store bought EXECPT fer RTCW.......that was bootlegged.
thanks again

[Budfred]

You definitely need to run antivirus, antiTrojan and antispyware porgrams if you are using bootleg software. Have you done that yet???

After this, the next most likely problem would be corrupted sound card drivers. If scans prove negative, I would Remove the sound card drivers in Device Manager and then reboot to reinstall them.

You may want to check with Sound Blaster's web site to see if there are any updates to the drivers.

Budfred

[MwAnDiP404]

yes! i have found 2 viruses with the names: TR/NoClose.2
but it didnt have to do with anything with sound so it must be a few corrupted files. so waht do i do with the viruses? how in the unholy hell how im going to git rid of them? im screwed i tellz ya screwed!!!1
and yet, THANKS again!

[Budfred]

What did you find them with?? Most of the time, the antivirus software has a way to kill them. Look in your program for options. I have heard that AVG is pretty good if your's doesn't and it is free. It is on the list in the link I sent you.

Oh, they may have indirectly screwed up your sound drivers. Focus on cleaning things up and then think about what I suggested with reinstalling the sound drivers.

Also, if you haven't already run the anti-trojan and anti-spyware, I would urge you to run them too. Just because you have virii, doesn't mean you don't have other garbage.

Budfred

[MwAnDiP404]

i found the viruses with: H+BEDV AntiVir Personal Edition - Guard9x
just clicked an option that makes sense to repair the infected files on next scan.....
im just about to get the update for my sound card...... thanks again!

[mjc]

Well, the no.close trojan is more of an annoyance than a damaging app. It spawns non-closeable browser windows. These are like poups from hell....they just won't go away until you either use ctrl-alt-del to close all instances of your borwser or reboot. But having it is a sign of security not being tight enough, and that can be a way for other malware to gain a toehold.

Quite possibly the two are unrelated, the lack of .wav files and the noclose trojan....

I would now go a step or two more and run one of the online scans listed in that link that Budfred gave you, and also grab Spybot S&D....it will kill a number of browser hijackers/dialers/ and other not so nice programs. Another good idea would be to grab a little app called Startup List, and post the output of it....both apps can be found here (http://lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html)

[Sylvander]

Hello MwAn

Your Wav files cannot play if the settings in your registry are incorrect so you need to check them.

The most interesting [but dangerous] way is from inside "regedit.exe" but I'll leave that for the moment and cover the safe method from outside regedit.

Go to "Windows Explorer>View>Folder Options>File Types", scroll down to "Wave Sound", highlight it and click "Edit".
You will see the three actions for WAV file types:
Open
Play
Record
Pick one, any one, say "Open" and click "Edit".
You will see highlighted, the address/pathway to the application which your PC should have registered to "Open" your WAV files.
The following shows the line in my window:

"C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\mplayer2.exe" /Play "%L"
My backup line in the registry reads [used if mplayer2 is uninstalled]
C:\WINDOWS\rundll32.exe C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\amovie.ocx,RunDll /open %1

You may have a different address and application to mplayer2.
The inverted commas around the address and the %L are important as is the word "Play" after the forward slash.

Similarly for:
PLAY
"C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\mplayer2.exe" /Play "%L"
My backup line in the registry reads
C:\WINDOWS\Sndrec32.exe /play /close %1
and
RECORD
C:\WINDOWS\sndrec32.exe

You may notice that inverted commas are put around the address when spaces are used in the address. The %L or %1 specify that that the file to be operated upon by the application specified is the one which has been highlighted [when you right-click and SELECT either the (bold) default action or some other (non-default) action; or you double-click and get the default action.
You can set the default action yourself when in the "Edit File Type" window by just highlighting the action [either Open, Play or Record] and clicking "Set Default".

If this hasn't made your head spin I could tell you what you'll see in the registry. I understand the essentials but not ALL the details.