Flip4Mac Now Free; Distributed by Microsoft
 

This version works better than the last one for streaming content from the web (which _never_ worked right under the previous developers) however, upon completion of a local wmv file, Quicktime crashes (reported by many other users, too).

Anyway, check it out:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win.../flip4mac.mspx

I just went to Flip4Mac's forums and the moderator said there is an issue between QuickTime 7.0.4 and Flip4Mac 2.0. They are working on a fix which they expect out soon. Did you install QuickTime 7.0.4 yet MBHockey?

I am kind of disappointed that Microsoft owns it now...unless it means more available codecs rather than an attempt to kill it.

Yeah, hopefully it'll be sorted out soon, the streaming plugin works MUCH better than the WMP one

WTF!!!!!!!

I just bought this and its now free?!

Flip4Mac is a virus
 

PLEASE READ: I'M POSTING THIS HERE SINCE THE DEVELOPERS HAVE BEEN WRITING GOOD REVIEWS ON VERSIONTRACKER.COM TO COVER IT UP. THESE ARE THE FACTS:

I just got a brand new iMac G5 to replace my TiBook (written in August 2005). I'm redownloading some of the software which I don't have on CD. I search Windows Media Player and find this. So I say whats the worse thing that could happen if I download it? Install it... Try it out.... Player works as stated, but plugin doesn't work in safari. Then I go to uninstall. After uninstallation, Windows Media Player and WMP plugin STOPPED WORKING.
So I call this company up and talked to JOYCE. She guides me through everything I just did. Still nothing. Did an Archive and Install, still no help. Finally did an erase and install, which fixed the problem. When I was talking to her she said they had called their head engineer in to figure out the problem. Yet this program is still 1.0.2. BEWARE THIS PROGRAM WAS LIKE A VIRUS TO ME AT 1.0.2. Unless you want to to a erase and install, don't use this unless they have a fix in the future!

EVERYONE WHO SAYS THIS IS BOGUS...? TRY INSTALLING IT AND THEN UNINSTALLING IT, THEN TRY OPENING A .WMV FILE OR A STREAM ON THE INTERNET. YOUR COMPUTER WON'T WORK PROPERLY ANYMORE.

As of 1/12/06 and version 2.1 or 2.0.1 I still see people are downloaing it and having these exact symptoms.

SADLY, they have deleted all their past user feedback on versiontracker.com for versions before 2.0. If your interested in finding past user feedback prior to 2.0 search "flip4mac joyce" in google and look at the cached pages.

I had it installed for a little while and when I uninstalled it, had the same problem. There was a file left behind that kept trying to open Quicktime. I forget where it was or what it was called, but as soon as I removed it, all was well.

Lucky
 

I was talking to Joyce from tech support for 1-2 hours and after that all she could suggest was a archive and install which still didn't fix the issue; following that I did an erase and install. What version did you try using?

I merged the new thread started by pardthemonster into this existing thread about Flip4Mac.

Yeah, i tried the standard method at first too. Which didn't work. Then i found one more thing to get rid of, and all was well.

When I installed the Flip4Mac software that I got from the Microsoft site, it installed the following files:

/Applications/Flip4Mac/Flip4Mac WMV Uninstaller.pkg
/Applications/Flip4Mac/WMV Player.app

/Library/PreferencePanes/Flip4Mac WMV.prefPane

/Library/Internet Plug-ins/Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.plugin
/Library/Internet Plug-ins/Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.webplugin

/Library/QuickTime/Flip4Mac WMV Export.component
/Library/QuickTime/Flip4Mac WMV Import.component

On mine, it also installed

/Library/Internet Plug-ins/Flip4Mac WMV Plugin.webplugin

and moved the old WM Plug-in to here:

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Disabled Plug-Ins/Windows Media Plugin

not a virus
 

While I understand that you experienced a lot of trouble with this program and had additional difficulty in uninstalling it, it is incorrect to call it a "virus" (or a "VIRUS"). The term "virus" has a specific meaning in relation to computers - it refers to a self-replicating program.
There is no evidence at all that this term applies to the Flip4Mac software.

A more generic term is "malware" which means software designed to damage a computer system. But even this term does not apply to Flip4Mac as I don't think it was intended to be harmful.

I think you merely wanted to say that you found Flip4Mac to be bad software: buggy and hard to remove.
But I suspect that the hard-to-remove part was mostly due to lack of knowledge on the part of those trying to help you.

It should never be necessary to have to reinstall OS X just to remove software that has been installed. In fact, since you didn't have to supply your admin password when you ran the Flip4Mac installer, it would have been impossible for it to modify the system in a manner that would make it difficult to remove. I think the problem was merely that you (and others helping you) didn't know where all the files were.

Yeah - on mine too. I just missed that one in the list.
I've edited my above post to include it.

I downloaded this program a few days ago, happy that the day had finally come. But I too have been having the crash problems (in QuickTime Player and Safari). Apart from this though it's great.

** Version 2.0.1 is available, I just checked. It "fixes problems with QT 7.0.4". I haven't downloaded yet, but I will now after I delete all those old files (thanks hayne for listing those.)

EDIT/UPDATE: For those interested, v2.0.1 works great now, possibly even better (since the preview is now shown in column view rather than a QT WMV icon, and it also feels snappier). Note that I did not use the Uninstaller... I deleted all the files that hayne listed (and if you Spotlight "Flip4mac," there are also a couple of receipts I deleted).

I also can confirm that version 2.0.1 works very well, both for playing WMV files that are on your hard disk (in QuickTime Player) as well as ones from a web site that you play in a browser window (via the browser plugin).
This is on 10.4.4 with Safari 2.0.3 and QuickTime 7.0.4

FireWired, my .wmv files have the generic no-app-related-to-this-filetype icon


Your .wmv files have a QT icon for them?

Edit: It seems you have to set the default app for .wmv files as "WMV Player" instead of QuickTime, and you'll get that icon back.

It seems that there might still be some problem with the Flip4Mac components even in the 2.0.1 version.
I had reported a few minutes ago that it was working well with both QuickTime Player and Safari.

But I just launched MS Word (version 10.1.6 from Office X) and it crashed immediately - before showing any windows at all.
The crash report doesn't give any clues as to what caused the crash, but it does show that the file
/Library/QuickTime/Flip4Mac WMV Import.component
had been loaded into memory upon launch.

I moved that file out of the /Library/QuickTime folder and tried again and Word launched with no problem.

But (not surprisingly) QuickTime Player now failed to play WMV files.
The Finder still worked to show the preview versions of these same WMV files - that is expected since the Finder had already loaded the component into memory and Finder has been running since then. (I'm sure that if I relaunched Finder, its previews would no longer work either.)

So there still is a problem with Flip4Mac, but a much smaller one. I'll probably still keep using it but just move the above component out of the way when I need to use Word - which is only once a week or so.

Just a note, Word is working fine for me with 2.0.1 installed.

What version of Word? (Office X or Office 2004 ? and what sub-version number ?)

Office 2004; "Version 11.2 (050714)"

I believe this to be the latest Office, since when i try to run the AutoUpdater, it tells me there are no updates available at this time.

Where can I find 2.0.1? As I write this, both Microsoft's web page and the Flip4Mac System Preferences pane deny that any newer version than 2.0 exists.

Trevor

It's still being distributed by the original creators, too. I'm not sure if MS is going to totally take over the distribution of the plug-in or what, because it certainly seems like the same team is still developing it.

http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm

I downloaded it earlier today. Flip4Mac's page says 2.0, but the download is actually 2.0.1. Just get it from their page.

I've been a happy user of Flip4Mac for months (and even paid for a license before the MS distribution). MS's lack of documentation in this switch, coupled with dumping WMP just shows how undedicated they are to Macs. I really wish a viable Office alternative would arrive, or that they do something like turn over all development to Apple. I like Office, but hate dealing with a company that only supports OS X because of anti-trust laws. MS's lack of enthusiasm in producing any Mac products just makes me hate having any of their software on my machine.

I'm running OS X 10.4.4, Flip4Mac 2.0.1, and Word 10.1.4 as I type this. All are working as expected. I didn't know there was a Word 10.1.5 or .6 version out there, but it's not an issue - I don't use it much any more, but I'm not likely to upgrade it anytime soon.

Yeah, that's what happened to me as well, but upon opening & closing a WMV file, the QT icon would appear; I did this for each WMV file I have on my disk (only about 15), but I suppose I shouldv'e tried your method first.

I noticed some comments on Versiontracker (where I downloaded 2.0.1 from) in which users were experiencing the same Office problem... I suspect the developers will quickly fix this as well though, since they were fast about fixing the crashing issue.

These are free updates from the Microsoft web site. The last one (10.1.6) is listed as a "security update" so you might want to update even if you don't use it much.

I reported the bug (crashing Word 10.1.6) to both Microsoft and the Flip4Mac developers.

Okay, I just had to uninstall the Flip4Mac WMV Plugin 2.0.1. I have two computers, one at work, one at home, that are pretty close to identical, but Flip4Mac works beautifully at home but crashes the respective host application on my work computer every time (be it Safari if I'm using F4M's web plugin feature or QuickTime Player if I have that pref turned on). The only difference I can see is at work, everything goes through a proxy, so maybe that has something to do with it.

So I used the F4M Uninstaller (which is a little confusing, because when you run it, it seems to suggest that it's going to install an uninstaller rather than uninstalling the app itself). As the whistle-blower above mentioned, after I uninstalled, WM files wouldn't open anymore. I'd go to CNN, click on one of the "Watch" links, and QT Player would open and give me an error. I couldn't figure out where to fix it (I have DefaultApp, but I wish there was a pane where it would list all applications, and what's associated with them).

Since QTP was trying to launch, I assumed that my problem had something to do with me selecting F4M's launch QuickTime Player preference; somehow that was still being honored. So, in an act of desperation, I reinstalled F4M 2.0.1, went to its PreferencePane, saw that launch QuickTime Player was still checked, unchecked it, (and unchecked the "Use F4M WMV Plugin", just to play it safe) and uninstalled again, and everything is working again.

So, clearly it didn't uninstall everything properly, but I can't figure out what got left behind. Post-uninstall #2 and I still can't find a preference file.

Hope that helps others that may be having problems.

Update: I think I found them:

/Library/Preferences/net.telestream.wmv.import.plist
/Library/Preferences/net.telestream.wmv.plugin.plist

That they aren't named com.flip4mac.* is what made them tough to find.

After installing flip4mac my repair permissions feature in disk utility no longer works. I also upgraded safari, quicktime, and the itunes music store to the latest versions. I am on 10.3.9. On the other hand my microsoft office 2004 seems to be working fine.

Any ideas about what to do with disk utility are greatly appreciated.

yours,
nicanor

Please supply more details about what is going wrong.
Show us the exact wording of any error messages etc.

Hey Hayne,

Thanks for the response. Sorry about not supplying the error message. Have found this over at macfixit.com.

iTunes 6.0.2 (#3): More on Disk Utility's inability to complete repairs; Smart playlist bug; more
More on Disk Utility's inability to complete repairs We previously reported on an inability to properly run Disk Utility after applying the iTunes 6.0.2 update, receiving the error message:

"Disk Utility lost connection with Disk Management Tool and cannot continue."

part-way through the repair process.

The problem generally affects users running Mac OS X 10.3.9.

We previously noted two potential workarounds for this issue:

Delete the "Chess" application and its associated .plist file (com.apple.Chess.plist, located in ~/Library/Preferences -- the Library folder inside your user directory) and attempt to re-run Disk Utility
Delete iTunes 6.0.2 and its associated .plist file (com.apple.iTunes.plist, located in ~/Library/Preferences). Re-install iTunes 6.0.1 (from a backup, if available) and attempt to run Disk Utility again.
Now several users report that you can simply drag the iTunes 6.0.2 application out of the /Applications folder temporarily while you repair permissions.

MacFixIt reader Ian Waterston writes:

"This issue whereby iTunes 6.02 messes up Disk Utility for Panther (and earlier system?) seems to have a 'Quick and Easy Fix'. Just drag ITunes 6.02 from the Application folder and onto the Desktop, then run Disk Utility to Repair Permissions. It will run perfectly. Then return iTunes back to the Application Folder. You'll have to do this whenever you want to Repair Permissions. I guess we just wait for Apple to make a permanent fix."

So, am thinking this is what my problem is, and I blamed it on flip4mac.

yours,
nicanor

This worked for me:

MacFixIt reader Ian Waterston writes:

"This issue whereby iTunes 6.02 messes up Disk Utility for Panther (and earlier system?) seems to have a 'Quick and Easy Fix'. Just drag ITunes 6.02 from the Application folder and onto the Desktop, then run Disk Utility to Repair Permissions. It will run perfectly. Then return iTunes back to the Application Folder. You'll have to do this whenever you want to Repair Permissions. I guess we just wait for Apple to make a permanent fix."

Between all the chaps here on the macosxhints pages, and the macfixit.com fellows, I must say I never worry to much when something goes wrong with my mac, as I am always confident about finding a fix.

Also, I am suprised that apple would release this update without more testing. I remember the debacle about the iTunes update that cocked-up peoples' machines several years ago. Am thanking the dieties that this one was nowhere near that level of mistake.

yours,
Nicanor

The recently released 2.0.2 version of Flip4Mac seems to have fixed the crashing problem with MS Word (and Excel)).