Help! New to VLC with tons of glitches

[quake10]

I hope i am in the correct area, I am totally new to this downloading/burning movies,music etc to begin with and trying to sort out all this conversion lingo and techniques and hoping someone can put it in laymens terms for me. I'm trying to use the net to put the pieces together, but cant seem to find a source for the very basics for dummies to build on. Ive got the burning part down, but was finding my burned CD's wouldn't play on my or my friends players, from there I'm finding out that I had to convert using different codex's,of which I still don't quite understand, hence downloading VLC, but I am seriously doing something wrong or there is a glitch in my download, of which I have downloaded several time in hopes of resolving some of my issues. I am using windows 7 with free version 1.1 Some of the issues are as follows:

1) While trying to play movies right from my downloaded sharing software,(even though its been downloaded on VCL)99% of the time it wont launch, load or play, but produce's a message saying that it needs updating. I have used the update function in the software and find i have the most recent version?????
2) I get the same issue while trying to load and play from within the program and retrieving from a file, and when I get a list from within the software - My Computer/Videos or Pictures, after highlighting and pushing play, or containing folder nothing loads
3) Program seems to freeze frequently and cant quite no matter where i try to quite from, I have to use task manager.
4) Cant seem to find a location to minimize from or cant toggle full screen unless a movie is actually playing.

There are similar other issues of response or lack of,so Im hoping someone can help this dumb guy with helping me further understand these burning, codex's,streaming,converting issues in laymen s terms and better understand the VCL program, I'm sure its something stupid I'm doing or not doing. Currently all I want to do is download some movies, songs and play them at home on my player.

I thank you in advance and hoping to hear from someone with experience with these matters.

Best Regards,
Wayne Milne