The VideoLAN Forums

Is there a setting to prevent the interactive zoom box from automatically appearing every time I open a video file?

Reset the preferences (the manual way) and try again:
https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:ResetPrefs

Lotesdelere,
Thanks for the direction, that solved the zoom box problem and the lockup when trying to convert an mov to mp4. Both work flawlessly now.

The next thing is to prevent the file name from appearing at the bottom upon starting a video.

I'll spend some time with the vlc documentation, there's a lot more there than I thought.

The next thing is to prevent the file name from appearing at the bottom upon starting a video.

Menu Tools -> Preferences -> Subtitles/OSD
Untick the "Show media title on video start" option.
Save, exit and restart VLC.

Thanks again. that's all for now.
This is one of the best forums to work with.