VLC gone mental taking over ALL associations to extremes

[From-Heaven-To_Hell]

I have a quite startling variation with this problem and indeed it's a wierd one i've never come across before. Not even with known aggressive downloadable programmes (major companies i mean lol).

First of all though a major THANK YOU to videolan for the vlc player i've used it for years without any problems (until recently)* and have always been grateful for it. *( like many others after an updated version last year, i have an unsolved problem with it only playing certain files in black and white and no published 'solutions' so far have corrected this).

Since a more recent updated version this year, i have it taking over ALL file associations to an unseen degree. I have uninstalled and reinstalled twice now. I have always correctly set options whilst installing for it not to take over associations on my system, or add itself to the right-click menu of programmes, folders and files. I've always had my computer set for it to prompt me to choose what programme to use for the majority of particular types of file, save for email and text documents etc. (i use outlook express and wordpad, notepad++ for the latter)

Like previous posters in these forums i go to 'Tools>Preferences>Interface>AssociationSetup. Set Video associations. Apply.'
and it has absolutely no effect, which is why i went down the reinstalling road, and clearing my cache preferences etc beforehand.

My bizzare variation on the whole affair?......no matter what type of programme or file i click on within my computer, vlc pops up attempting to open it!!! As an example, I can go to start>my computer>C:Drive>program files>'folder of any type of program'>click it and the vlc interface opens up trying to open a programme no matter what it is. Any type of programme under the sun or document, spreadsheet, database you name it. Infuriatingly, at the top of every right-click option menu is in big bold font the 'open with vlc player' grrrRRRRR LOL!.

Over the years i have (rightly) recommended vlc player as an absolutely superb programme. It has certainly given me and countless others fantastic service. However, from what i see there have been a couple of unsolved glitches from recent updated versions.

As a result i've taken on board a couple of other media players and......wow! the world has moved on in recent years without my knowledge. There are now several new players around that are excellent. I'm not going to name them as i feel very loyal to vlc and would prefer to keep using it as often as possible. At this moment in time i rarely use vlc any longer and am about to delete it for this SOLE reason of overriding ALL file associations.

Can anyone please offer assistance? I soooooo want to keep my vlc player in use. However, right now the executioner's axe is raised above it's head.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

It sounsd like you did not download VLC from our official repositories, because our installer definitely does not do that.

[From-Heaven-To_Hell]

I downloaded from the main front page at http://www.videolan.org/ There is a large window on the right hand side which has the download link.

One thing i have noticed, is that when one clicks on the link it duly takes you to a page saying;

'Downloading from ' location wherever 1'. Click here if your download doesn't start. Refresh the page to download from another mirror.'

However, upon clicking for it to download from 'location wherever 1', it will always actually start downloading from a diferent mirror as in 'location wherever 2'.

I've not incurred any viruses or anything and i've never remotely had any such problems previously in all the years i've used VLC. It's been a very trustworthy and safe programme to use.

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