For a while, Winamp was perhaps the most famous and widely used media player in the world. But despite its immense popularity, the app was sold, development slowed down, and things kind of calmed down. Things have been so quiet, in fact, that there hasn’t been a stable software update for several years.
But now, with the release of Winamp 5.9 (or Winamp 5.9 Final Build 9999 to give it its full title), that’s changing. This update represents four years of work and brings support for Windows 11, adds support for additional codecs, and includes new streaming options.
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While the release of the first stable software update in years is undeniably huge news, the development team warns that users may not notice a huge difference. But it is a reference to what is visible on the surface; under the hood, the changes are colossal.
In a forum post about the release, the developers of Winamp say:
This is the culmination of 4 years of work since 5.8 Release.
Two development teams and a period of pandemic-induced hiatus in between. #
For the end user, it might seem like there aren’t a whole lot of changes,
but the biggest and hardest part was actually migrating the whole project from VS2008 to VS2019
and make sure everything is built successfully.The foundations are now laid and we can now focus more on functionality.
Whether repairing/replacing old ones or adding new ones.The build number remained 9999 for this version (beta, RC and final versions)
(builds can be identified by filename + timestamp).We will reset the build number for v5.9.1
Now that the groundwork has been done, the future of Winamp looks very exciting. Important updates are already planned to be included in version 5.9.1, and there will be many more beyond.
You can download Winamp 5.9 here and read the changelog in the Winamp Forums.