The first time I disabled VLC's auto-play feature, it was over a year ago. I had to reset all of my preferences, due to some stupid issues going on either with the video files I have or VLC itself. Regardless, I had to figure out ONCE AGAIN how to disable auto-play.
Perhaps this has been addressed, and everybody knows this now. I am going to post this anyway, hoping it stays somewhere and people can come back if they need help.
THIS IS FOR VLC ON WINDOWS, in the event some google search result brings a MAC or LINUX or some other user here.
With that in mind, all of the results I tried to find were for Mac so....
To disable auto-play for VLC.
Go to Tools>Preferences
-at the bottom left, there is something that says "show settings", select "All"
Scroll down until you find "Playlist", click that and a list of "General playlist behaviour" options should appear.
Find AUTO START and uncheck it.
Trust me, it works..thank god...