The VideoLAN Forums

I am SO PISSED about this I can hardly even type straight!

Yes, VLC is a great program! SO much so, that I wish I could GET IT BACK into use when some bastard program like Quicktime or PowerDVD takes over my extensions, I want VLC to take them the hell back! I don't want to go prying through the tedious, tiny, and clumsy Folder Options control panel to get the thing opening with VLC again! Especially when it doesn't work - when Quicktime has dug itself SO FAR into my file extensions, that it's actually OVERRIDDEN my instruction to open with VLC, putting itself in place of the "alternate" option! Even making it appear that it's going to still open with VLC! EVERY TIME I install Quicktime, I'm careful to only select what I WANT it to open, and it agrees. ONE UPDATE is all it took to say "--please stay polite-- you Falcon, I'm taking over your WHOLE computer!".

With my other software, it's easy to reclaim an extension. I tell the naughty program to take a rusty spike up its ass, and I open the correct program, which detects the problem and solves it. With VLC, however, THERE ISN'T EVEN AN OPTION! I can't get it to reclaim its extensions because it's a limp-wristed pussy about file extensions. It doesn't even know what they are. That's what I want to stop, right here, right now.

VLC can play anything, independent of file extensions. Fine, that's well and good. But you can't get it to play anything without being associated with a file type - easily, at least. The installer recognizes file extensions, which is nice and all, but ONLY THE INSTALLER understands extensions. After it's installed, it's free for the taking. Of course, the file extensions the installer chooses to associate by default are TOTALLY ridiculous (audio files? hell no... bin, cue, dat...? HELL no... who thought these up? they should be shot...), but that's another topic for another day. What I want is to be able to, like all other programs, pick what extensions I want to associate with VLC.

Is that too much to ask? If this's been asked a thousand times, isn't it about dang time to implement it already? If there's a cross-platform barrier in the way, all the more reason I hate cross-platform development and open source programs...

Pardon my first post but this has just pissed me too far off tonight... Quicktime misbehaving majorly is Quicktime's problem, but VLC not being able to do anything about it is VLC's problem. >.<

This is a known issue and I think that the developers may be working on a fix but it'll have to wait until the next version (VLC 0.9.0), don't take CloudStalker's word for it though.

It isn't a cross platform problem, it is a windows specific problem.

And so far no windows developer has worked on this feature... :/

This is wrong, I am currently working on it....
But this is complex for I have no idea how windows work.

BTW, next time I see a post like that, SCREAMING, YELLING, and NOT BEING POLITE, with REQUEST and BEING PISSED OFF, like that, I will remove the topic and stop working on the fix...

Is that clear?

I work on VLC on my free time, as all VLC developers, and I took some time on my FREE time to install som stupid Operating System in order to please YOU.
So be nice.

Needless to say I was a little pissed that my favorite video player, this one, couldn't reclaim its file associations. So pardon me for my YELLING. It wasn't really at VLC, but at the situation in general.

And for being, by far, the most popular OS for VLC to be installed on, I don't think Windows is "some stupid operating system"...
(let alone "need" to be installed... what else would you be running on? Linux? Don't make me roffle...)

But thanks to everyone for actually seeing beyond my blind rage last night and admitting it needs to be addressed. I would have asked nicer one of the hundreds of other times I had thought of this problem, but I didn't think that far into it. If you're curious about how file associations work, just try running Regmon on the HKCR (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT) section of the registry while installing PowerDVD 6 - you'll find out the hard way how file associations are done, as it hopelessly assimilates your MPEG, MP3, DVD, and VCD file formats into PowerDVD. It's really quite simple once you get to know it

Windows is a tough operating system to understand as CloudStalker is finding out the hard way.

This feature has been requested alot; why make a new thread when you could've searched and bumped that thread instead? Oh...and...um...annoying the developers, that's something CloudStalker would've done' but they're used to that so they probably would've just ignored it anyways.

Well, I made a few commit for that request...

Huh? No, CloudStalker was talking to the thread starter.

This is wrong, I am currently working on it....
But this is complex for I have no idea how windows work.

I was going to make a new post, but I felt it would be better to just add to this request.

Is there any chance we can add a flag to the executable to set itself as default for all media file types? I checked the online documentation, but it doesn't look like it exists.
I was working on adding the appropriate entries into the registry for the Windows Set Program Access and Defaults so that VLC would show up in it and allow me to select it, but as vlc is setup it won't work correctly.
I've been using the documentation available on MSDN to do this, so if you're able to commit a patch to set filetypes inside vlc and add the flag for default filetype, I can write up the documentation needed to have it entered into the registry.

Small edit: If this increases clutter, it can be moved to uninstall.exe

I am sorry, I just don't get it.

What do you want ?

So far, you can register at install VLC for all the media types we know.

And you can register/unregister during the use of the program the file associations for the next versions.

What do you want more ?

I should probably elaborate more on what I would like to be able to do.

Currently, in windows there is a Microsoft tool called "Set Program Access and Defaults", this allows you to control the file types from one place. This is where you can choose the default internet browser, IM client, along with removing access to the various programs available.

To add a program to the SPAD menu, you need to add a few entries to registry. Among these, you need the following:

The reinstall command is executed when you select the program as the default program for the category (in this case, media). It essentially launches a program that configures all the appropriate media types to use the program (videolan)

The HideIcons command, hides the icons and menus (start menu, desktop icon, quicklaunch). Doesn't really need to be used, most applications don't bother with this.
The ShowIcons, suprisingly restores the icons and menus. this is also not neccessary,
IconsVisible entry is updated when the Enable Access box is checked/unchecked. It can be left as 1.


The only entry that is really required is ReinstallCommand, when the program is selected, it needs to execute something to set the media types to VLC. This is currently not available, so were I to set it up as it is, selecting VLC won't do anything, It'll just appear to be the default, when it really isn't.

I have no clue on what we should do:

This is our installer script file:
https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/browser/t ... n32.nsi.in

Take it and modify it and give it us back and we will make the changes

Will do!

Cool

i would like better support for making it my default media player too

+1 from CloudStalker.