VLC error (Nightmare!) Launches but no window!

[bradallaround]

Hello all,

I'm having a very terrible problem with VLC and simply getting it launched.

Heres the lowdown:

When I launch VLC (from start menu, program files, what have you...)
The cursor displays the time glass, the program appears to launch, it even allows me to see a window when I try to play videos:

But.... I can not, for the life of me, get the main window to appear, nor when I launch the program does a the program appear on the taskbar, but yet it appears in the processes list, 1 time for every time I launch it (as is normal of course)
Picture here:


This is the extent of my problems.... although not being able to open the program kinda renders it useless... so i suppose its a fairly weighty problem to have!

Also, I have a feeling this has to do with the window which appears upon installing VLC which asks about preferences for album art (cant provide picture of course) I install VLC on my other home computer and it's window came up but first this preference window came up which i just referred to.

Thats my best guess at the problem, and what further confirms that is that i cleared preferences when installing a newer version a few days ago, and since then (i believe) it hasnt worked.

Any and all help greatly appreciated!

Thanks again,
-Brad

Edit:
P.S. --- I've tried the following thing so you all know:

Starting VLC before any program when starting windows
Not installing & installing plug-ins (activex and mozilla)
Deleteing and saving caches and preferences when installing
Reinstalling version which i had when i first had problems,
as well as installing Versions:
0.8.4a
0.9.6
0.9.8a
1.0.0-git
Needless to say, to no avail.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Delete %appdata%/vlc folder.
Uninstall VLC and delete VLC install folder by hand
Clean your regedit of VLC and VideoLAN things.

Relaunch 0.9.8a from our videolan.org folder.

[bradallaround]

J-B,

Thank you very much for the timely response.

Tried all that you said, and much much more, all to no avail

But Thankfully! -- I did a system restore to a few days ago and now VLC launches and works fine.
Very odd, must have been something I changed in windows that caused this issue.

Thanks so much again for all your help!
Sorry to anyone having the same problem, I suppose the only solution is restoring your computer to an earlier time via system restore. If anyone finds anything else that solves this particular issue, post it up, I suppose!
-Brad