What’s the story of the onestop.mid file in the Media directory?

Raymond Chen


If you look in your C:\Windows\Media folder, you’ll find a MIDI file called onestop. What’s the story behind this odd little MIDI file? Aaron Margosis considers this file a security risk because “if an attacker can cause that file to be played, it will cause lasting mental pain and anguish to everybody within earshot.”

Despite Wikipedia’s claims[citation needed], the file is not an Easter Egg. The file was added in in Windows XP with the comment “Add cool MIDI files to replace bad old ones.” So as bad as onestop is, the old ones must have been even worse!

Okay, but why were they added?

For product support.

The product support team wants at least one MIDI file present on the system by default for troubleshooting purposes. That way, problems with MIDI playback can be diagnosed without making the customer go to a Web page and download a MIDI file. When asked why the song is so awful, the developer who added the file explained, “Believe it or not, OneStop is ‘less bad’ than the ones that it replaced. (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, etc.)” Another reason for replacing the old MIDI file is that the new one exercises more instruments.

The song was composed by David Yackley.

On the other hand, we lost clock.avi.


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