I just want a more classic Vista.

July 5, 2007 11:08 PM

How can I make Media Player Classic my default video player in Windows Vista with the least effort possible?

I recently upgraded to Windows Vista, and while I definitely like it more than I liked XP, one thing has been aggravating me. I had always used Media Player Classic to play my video files, as it's lightweight and can handle anything thrown at it. However, with Vista, I can't go into the program's options and set it as the default player for all video files; when I close the program and open it again, those options are unchecked. I can't choose MPC by going to Default Programs > Set Default Programs, either; it's not one of the choices I'm presented with, and there's not an option to choose a program not in the list. Short of going into the list of filetypes and manually setting each format to open in MPC, is there a one-shot setting I can change that'll let me do it? My Google-fu has failed me.

posted by phaded to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Mind you, this is untested, but have you tried running it as Admin when you go to make the changes?

Browse to the directory with the mplayer exe, right click and choose "Run as Administrator" and then onces running make the changes.

I've had to do that with a couple of programs to get them to be able to change file associations or even run correctly ( PSP9 for example )
posted by petethered at 11:42 PM on July 5, 2007

When in explorer, right click the file in question and go to "Open With -> Choose Default Program"

You'll have to do with each type of media file, but it worked for me. In reality there are only a half dozen or so major file types so it is not very laborious.
posted by geoff. at 11:42 PM on July 5, 2007

petethered, thanks. I still haven't gotten used to having to run programs as the Administrator, but with that in mind, I'll definitely remember that the next time I have a problem like this.

geoff., I thought of that thirty seconds after I clicked post, and I was going to do that if I didn't get an answer I liked.
posted by phaded at 11:48 PM on July 5, 2007

I've had this problem too and it's good to find a solution.

geoff - the problem is that in Vista, you can't select MPC as a program to run a file with, even using the Open With... and then navigating to the MPC exe. It just doesn't appear in the list of programs to use. Maybe something to do with the fact that it's not running in Admin mode or because it's a standalone exe not a 'proper' installed program?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:30 PM on August 28, 2007