Yeah there was a codec pack made by klite that I use to download from the sketchiest sites. I think I used to use media player classic with that codec pack before I knew about VLC. Otherwise you'd be fighting all the time to play get things to play. You'd be downloading content from P2P sites like Napster, Kazaa, Limewire, and what not, and coming across file types you wouldn't recognize (and a lot of content that wasn't what you thought it was until after you opened it). Which is why many of us learned a decent amount about malware through our own naivety. Install sketchy software to play sketchy media, end up with sketchy results. But so many of us did it.

Windows media player was the most common way people knew to burn CDs that most of my friends knew. So you would either rip CDs that family members had, or download songs offline, try to get them all into the same file format and name/organized them into a nice playlist that went well together. And burn them and listen to them walking around. They were a big "gf/bf" gift back then as well. If you wanted to tell someone you liked them spending the time to curate a CD of songs you thought they would like mixed with ones you knew they like and giving them it with a personalized written track list on the top was a huge hit.

You may know all of this but it brings back some good memories. Haha. I remember doing that for a girl I liked in Elementary School... And subsequently being dumb enough to NOT know a girl who did that for me was into me. She made one of me and my friend because she was nervous about just giving one to me, and I of course thought, well she made one for him too so it might not mean what you think..

Couple years later in 7th grade she told me she had had the biggest crush on me back then and I was shocked. (Also may have been a clue that I should have picked up on, but I was to much of a doof still.. oops)