"VanguardLH" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne wrote:

"VanguardLH" wrote in message
...
Jo-Anne wrote:

I recently started playing DVDs on my WinXP laptop. Each time I put a
DVD
in
the drive, it opens with PowerDVD. Since I like to use VLC Media
Player,
I
close the PowerDVD window, open VLC Media Player, and click on the DVD
drive. I'm sure there's a way to set VLC as the default DVD player. I'd
be
grateful for instructions on how to do this or even for a link to a
website
that explains it.

Not a hardware question. This is a software configuration issue or, at
best, an issue with filetype associations in the operating system.
VideoLan's forums are over at http://forum.videolan.org/.

Right-click on the .vob file (or whatever you open to play the movie),
select Open With, and browse to the VLC program's executable. Make sure
you enable the Remember option in the browse dialog.

Or you could set the file associations within VLC Player. Alas, for
some reason, its designers decided that not all the simple options will
be present in the advanced options. To set file associations in VLC's
preferences, use the simple interface for its Preferences dialog. Then
look under the Interface category of options. Enable the extension for
whatever is the video file you are trying to open in VLC.

Thank you, Vanguard! I did look at the interface categories in VLC, and
all
the options are checked--but still PowerDVD opens the files. I wonder if
PowerDVD can be uninstalled...

I thought Microsoft had issued a security update that disabled autorun
on removable media because it is such an obvious security breach. So
it's odd that inserting a disc still has autorun.inf getting read (and
its specified executable loaded) or of any media handler get loaded.

What you want is to change, delete, or disable the autoplay settings.
Rather than edit the registry you can use Microsoft's TweakUI powertoy
or Windows Explorer. In TweakUI, go to the My Computer - AutoPlay -
Handlers node in the tree. Then delete the PowerDVD handlers. In
Windows Explorer, right-click on the optical drive, Properties, select
the media type in the drop-down list, and select which handler you want
as the default (or enable the prompt option so you always get asked as
to what handler you want to use - that's how I set it up).


Thank you, Vanguard! I did make the change in Explorer, and VLC now is my
default program for playing DVDs.

Jo-Anne