I've searched various forums and I haven't come across this yet. Basically I'd like to have a setting in VLC's preferences so that it doesn't automatically start playing files as soon as you open them. I've seen a few postings in other sections of this forum asking for the same thing, but no one seems to have a perfect way of doing it.
The closest way I've seen is shown here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67015&p=222933&hili ... ay#p224639
The suggested batch file will prevent videos from auto-playing, because the UI is minimized. I've tried it though and it still won't prevent audio files from auto-playing.