ActiveX IE Desktop Shortcuts break Internet Explorer and VLC

[shriverde]

All,
I am using VLC to play a multicast stream using embedded JavaScript on Internet Explorer. I noticed a critical error when launching the website using a Desktop Shortcut of Internet Explorer. The fix for this was not using IE desktop shortcuts. (Actually clicking on the Internet Explorer big 'Blue e")

Version information:
Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519
VLC 0.8.6

Code to launch VLC embedded into htm:
<OBJECT classid="clsid:E23FE9C6-778E-49D4-B537-38FCDE4887D8"
codebase="https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/somedirectory//axvlc.cab"
width="640" height="480" id="vlc" events="True">
<param name="Src" value="udp://@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx" />
<param name="ShowDisplay" value="True" />
<param name="AutoPlay" value="True" />
</OBJECT>

When launched from a Desktop shortcut or Microsoft Product (example: "http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx")

The following Error is Presented in a Command Prompt Screen:

"The command line options couldn't be loaded, check that they are valid.

Press the RETURN key to continue..." (if you let it go for a while it will return more error messages something like...

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\axvlc.dll: unknown option or missing mandatory argument `-E"

and several other errors saying it can not find 'vlcrc' under some users profile path.

Internet Explorer Locks becomes unstable and Stops Responding and requires IE restart with Error Reporting sent to MS.

If you were to open IE normally and manually type the website in to the address bar VLC plays perfectly. As well, if you add the website into your favorites and again launch IE with the big "Blue e" it works perfectly.

Looks to me like MS has tried to make the shortcut’ed websites load faster by not loading all the dll's and / or when a shortcut is launched it is using shared dll's to accomplish the loading of IE. Which is in turn, is breaking IE.

Originally we thought it may be a permissions problem: (Who loaded the original ActiveX and VLC) we later tested this with a user who had the basic user rights (not an administrator) and VLC played perfectly again, as long as they opened IE with the big "Blue e" instead of a desktop shortcut or something of that nature.

As well, we linked the website from another active website and it worked fine as long as the original instance (the first website) had been opened by pushing the big "Blue e" and not a shortcut. By the way... Looked in the event viewer "NOTHING IS THERE"... Way to go MS!!!

[Quovodis]

this problem is related to http://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/920, until we fix it, you will need to make sure that IE/firefox command line is empty

[shriverde]

[quote="Quovodis"]this problem is related to http://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/920, until we fix it, you will need to make sure that IE/firefox command line is empty[/quote]

How would one "Ensure that IE/firefox command line is empty"?

Thanks
Dan