The VideoLAN Forums

This issue goes back to at least two versions of VLC. Sometimes, when I launch VLC, either directly or by double-clicking a file, the cursor will briefly change, but the UI doesn't open. I have to kill the VLC process from task manager and it will then appear when I launch it again. In addition, when I try to exit VLC it keeps running in the background and the process needs to be manually killed.

Thanks,

Jon

First, reboot your computer.
Uninstall VLC.
Then delete the whole C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\ folder if it's still exists, it might be C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\ if you're using the 32-bit version. Check both folders anyway.
Also delete the whole %APPDATA%\vlc\ folder.

Once done, reboot again and reinstall latest version of VLC, v3.0.21 as of today.