Vista - default programs

Again... Itunes installed an update and switched all the movie programs
to Itunes without asking. How I hate that damned company.

Now... I try to shift them back to Media Player. right click on mpg file
OR find it through control panel associations... both end up in "Open
with." Media Player is not listed as a possible program or in other
programs,... have no idea why or how to fix that... but no problem, I
just click browse, find program files/windows media player/
winplayer.exe and click "open." Great, except nothing happens. It just
goes back to select a program. So I start trying other things like
select, hit enter, select hit control 2 or 3 things, right click, left
click... lots of swearing and damning both companies to hell... nothing
happens... zilch.

Now I remember... this happened before once. I have to go into the
registry and do everything by hand in this most advanced of Microsoft
systems. Have to find everything that mentions mpg or mpeg and either
delete it or try and figure out how to repoint it to media player.

John

hi john

i guess you've tried using default programs?

if not type default programs in the start menu search bar and re-associate that way

That kind of sounds like you have Windows Media Player in "Hide" mode in the
Default Programs "Set Program Access and Defaults" control panel... do you?

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--
"John" <john6528@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uUHjuUaIJHA.4896@xxxxxx

Hi John,

As Nigel posted above, you should be able to use "Default Programs" to make "Windows Media Player" the default programs with all of it's association set for it. This tutorial will help show you how to if needed.

Default Programs - Program Default Associations

Hope this helps,
Shawn

I tried to explain that I did that and it doesn't work.

Some "Default Programs" prompts:

4. Select a Program in the List -. --- Windows Media Player is NOT on
the list.


6. To Manually Set the Selected Program's Default Associations to it -
NOTE: To only set the default file extension associations that you
choose for the program to open by default.

A) Click on Choose defaults for this program to manually choose the
associations for this program. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: It may take a moment to load up.

Windows Media Player isn't on this list either.

So Media Player isn't on any of the default player lists and,
apparently, there is no way to get it onto the lists.

The other thing I can do is right click on any mpg file and go through a
routine of finding wmplayer.exe because, supposedly, then I can add that
to the list of possibles... of course that doesn't work either.
Absolutely nothing changes when I do that.


Here's what works:

Do a search in the registry for mpg. Clean out any references to
anything except things having to do with media player... there are a
couple different references to it.

Exit regedit, find any mpg file and send it to windows media player. to
do this you have to add windows media player to your "send it to"
list... that's an almost impossible task in vista too and will add to
your joyful exploration of vista possibilities. I think, probably, if
you open Windows Media Player and use files, open to find an mpg file,
that might work too. After that Windows Media Player will be the
default... I don't know why. Windows Media Player still doesn't show up
on any of the default program lists.

The Microsoft folks, in their continuing effort to make things difficult
and confusing, decided they had a better idea for people (in this case
involving default programs) and told all the software providers to take
default choosing out of their programs. You can't just boot Media Player
or Quicktime or any of the others and request them to auto-play what you
want them to play... oh no, no, no... Microsoft does NOT want things to
be that easy for its users. It has a better idea. Windows will do
everything in a central location caused default programs. How wonderful
for all of us. Almost as wonderful as UAC which lets windows control all
the controlling... jeez... sometimes you just have to cry.

John


Brink wrote:

"John" <john6528@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uuBCJheIJHA.1304@xxxxxx

Please don't use those options at this point.

Please use the Default Programs "Set program access and computer defaults"
control panel and verify that the player is not hidden. Heck, hide it and
reshow it to verify you're not in Hide mode. If you're in Hide mode,
*anything else* is useless.

Please stop alternative actions or opinions until we've verified you're not
in Hide mode. If you're in Hide mode, nothing else will be useful. =\
This would make sense if you were in Hide mode. This is a feature designed
to let you hide the player.
I apologize if you think it's complicated. On many levels, this simplifies
a really confusing previous world whereby even if you told Player X that it
wanted it to be the default, Player Y could arbtrarily to you decide to
override that. That's not "easy for users": I'd say it actually utterly
sucks.

I'm really excited to have all the controls *you* care about put into one
place.

Now, you're currently frustrated because those controls are *missing* the
player: let's figure out why that's happening, since that's the real
concern, not the design of Default Programs. =)

-Zach
--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

John,

Give this a try to see if it will add Windows Media Player back to the Default Programs List:

Windows Media Player - Restore or Remove from Default Programs

1. Open Control Panel (Classic View)
2. Click on "Default Programs" icon.
3. Click on "Set program access and computer defaults" link.
4. Dot "Custom" and expand the section with the right arrow.
5. Scroll down to the "Choose a default media player" section
6. Dot the default "Use my current media player".
7. Check the "Enable access to this program" box to the right of "Windows Media Player".
8. Click on OK.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Yes... this helped finally. It's astounding that both of you claim this
is a step forward in clarity and ease of use for Microsoft. I just have
to shake my head in disbelief. I don't know why people want to hide
things like their media programs. I suppose there is some obscure
reason. Now I am looking for outside software that will unhide
everything. I am always looking for outside software to un-screw-up all
the crud Microsoft heps on me.

I heard that finally in the next version there will be a choice whether
to copy everything you do to disk. Why did Microsoft suddenly decide
years ago that it would be fun to save every keystroke to disk, every
page looked at, almost taking your pulse and temperature and saving that
too? It's just baffling after baffling when you use Microsft. I'm always
saying why, why, why as i spend the hours trying to do what I want to do
in my way rather than Microsoft's.

"Hide Mode" by the way, is not in the vista help files by the way.

It took about a day and knowledge of news groups to find the correct
answer to my problem. dinging around with the registry fixed it in about
10 minutes. My approach to problems is to look to the help files, try
google, and then go to these newsgroups. While waiting I ding around
best I can if i need a solution now. Sometimes I screw things up but
then just restore.

John




Brink wrote:

John, I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted now.

However, I do not claim this is easier or a step forward by any means though. It's just how to do it in Vista. I'm not sure of the reasoning behind it either.

Regards,
Shawn

"John" <john6528@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uoxH9kwJJHA.4512@xxxxxxThe Default Programs code should simplify things. The "show/hide access"
functionality was added for regulatory reasons and is unrelated to my
references as regards the simplification of file associations that the
Default Programs tools *definitely* provides. (I'm accidentally
knowledgable in this field and have dealt with all sorts of developers at
all sorts of companies who got confused by the old ways. Any developer who
uses the new ways should pretty quickly understand what a nice win the new
styles are. The end user may not notice so readily - it should generally
hopefully be imperceptible.)
That's as far as I know just the term I've used for that state and it's kind
of caught on because it makes sense. It's just an aspect of the Set Program
Access and Defaults control panel which has its own section. I'm unaware
that it's ever referred to as "hide mode" by any official documentation. If
it does, let me know what uses it where - that's be good to get
corrected/fixed/clarified. =)

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.