To 2: Now you're at lest not anymore stuck in the skin.Thanks for your help but it's not like that.
1- I don't know how to delete the preferences. No clue. I am new at Linux. In any case it happens from a fresh install of Mandriva and VLC.
2- Opening it with -Iqt4 just opens the player. If I drag and drop a file it opens in TWO MORE WINDOWS making it three in total.
3- I have the latest 0.9.6 version and by default it opens it two windows. DOing what you suggest does not fix the problem.
4- Unzipping the skins to that folder doesn't mean that I can use the skins. It is terrbly deffective in many ways. Mostly if you get stuck in a bad skin (they shoulc check them well befre letting them being downloaded) like my case.
To 2&3: Why does it open 2 more windows? I tried it on WinXP and there was no new window opened, video played fine inside the player. Which two windows are opened when you drag a file into the player? Video and Playlist? I thought the Qt4 interface behaviour was more or less cross-platform, so normally that should not be the case.
To 4: I just checked most of the skins in 0.9.6 on WinXP and they work fine.
Maybe the Mandriva build is broken somehow?