RealPlayer Takes Over Autoplay Settings

Troops:

When I play a DVD or Audio CD the starting program is RealPlayer. This occurs even when every file suffix listed on that DVD or CD may be associated wtih say PowerDVD or Windows Media.

My question: How does one assert what programs are used by the automatic start routine? In fact what program is used to automatically start CDs or DVDs? Where is this file?

David Favin

 

Chester:

Thanks for the come-back. The associations for the files on the DVDs and CDs are exactly what I want. However, when I insert the DVD or CD the program that immediately starts and seems to takes over is RealPlayer.

For example, on DVDs one will find VOB, BUP, IFO, as suffixes. None of these files in my computer have an association listed with RealPlayer. Yet, when the DVD is inserted the RealPlayer starts playing the disk material.

How do I stop the RealPlayer's startup action?

David Favin

 

Pete:

I tried your suggestion BUT.....

When I right clicked on the DVD icon and then chose PROPERTIES the window displayed only had one tab. It was the GENERAL tab. There was no AUTOPLAY tab displayed.

Any further suggestions as to how to get to the AUTOPLAY tab?

David

 

Peter:

I am running WINDOWS 98. (I find there are much fewer attacks on this system than XP.)

David

 

I do have XP an I had the same problem. I could do all the re-associating Via Control Panel or the Registry several times and it still would not hold.

MY final fix was to re-install WMP.

BillyBob

 

Real Alternative Download

If I download Real Alternative, will it Attempt to take over as default player? I`m using WMP 10 presently.
Dick
XP Home

 

Yes. It is possible. That is what happened to me. And I was watching for the Question " do you want RP to be Default ?" so that I could say NO. but I never saw it. I had to reinstall WMP.

BillyBob

 

Thanks, as usual, Billy Bob. Let that be a lesson to me, "look before leaping" or something like that. Every once in a while I need Realone but I can survive without it. I thought maybe the "Real Alternative" might not be as intrusive
Dick

 

I used to reinstall Real Player and make sure that it didn't do anything...that is unless I asked it to. I made it default nothing.

Also, you should use Start Up Cop or Startup Control and Startup Monitor to make sure that Real Player doesn't start up automatically once you use it.

 

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm

The above site has a Real Alternative, that I ran onto searching for a codec I want. I wondered if anyone on the board had any experience with it. It appears to maybe be OK but I like to learn by other peoples experience. Evidently, by all the replys, it`s the same thing as Real Player, or nobody caught what I wrote.
Thanks for the reply.
Dick

 

Why doesn't anyone tell him to go into RealPlayer's options and only leave checked the file types that are Real file types? It's so simple. Then open WMP and check the stuff in its options you want it to play, open Quicktime and (usually use defaults in brower options and same in file types works here) do the same. Run PowerDVD and say okay to its options panel. Then choose whatever you want in autoplay on XP.

Jeez, these players don't steal file types if you don't want them to! Not going into the options panels to set what you want IS wanting them to steal them. The best way is to set this stuff while RealPlayer is installing, but it is easily changed to whatever you want in the player's options.

Use the players options first, then you shouldn't need to go into Windows File Properties File Types. Remember, it doesn't matter what is set here if you let the player's keep moving them back to themselves. You take control! And it doesn't require special programs to control what happens at Windows Startup.

 

Well Jeez, Eck there`s just a lot I don`t know about these options you`ve told me about. Appreciate the Help however. I don`t have Quicktime, or,to my knowledge DVD power player, I`m running Roxio Media Creator 7 I`m just now in the process of learning how it works, and haven`t graduated to DVD yet. Also the
"Then choose whatever you want in autoplay on XP. "
statement I`m not sure about.
I`ve downloaded your message, I`ll go down and parse it out and see what I come up with.Thanks for the help!
Dick

 

Yeah, it's unfortunate that the companies that provide these media players don't advertise how to remove their usually default setting of grab all the file types it knows how to play and steal the associations from whomever is associated with it now!

Of course, they all want to make it easy for us to use their player exclusively for everything. And while they're at it they want to not let us know how easy it is to turn off their "Message Deliverer." In RealPlayer this is also in the options or preference panel.

What I mean't by Windows Auto-Play is when you open My Computer and right click the drive and choose Properties, you'll see a tab for Auto-Play. Here, you can set which player you want to automatically run when a cd or dvd spins up. I usually set each to Take No Action. That way I can open the program I want to use first, not worrying about needing to hold down the Shift button while I load cd's. If you want to have a cd or dvd to auto-run, just set your prefered players for each kind of content there.

 

ECK
When you say go into RealPlayers Options just exactly where are these "options "? On the tool bar if I chose TOOLS->Preferences-> I get something labeled OPTIONS but it hardly gives any choice of a starting program. None ofthe other choices on the tool bar indicate anything like OPTIONS. I would appreciate being steered to what you have in mind as OPTIONS.

David

 

Tools-Preferences-Automatic Services-Message Center.

Tell it to only run when RealPlayer is running. Also in the popup Message Center when there are no messages you have a big button saying "Configure Messages." Click that, and uncheck everything (Sports, news, etc) as well as the 3 options on the bottem regarding player updates and whatnot. This way Message Center won't even pop up when RealPlayer is running because you have it set to not check for anything.

And, you'll notice Content-Media Types as well in the Preferences. Click that and uncheck the hog the whole system option and choose to customize the file types. A box pops up where you can uncheck everything you don't want. I usually leave all the Real file types checked as well as that AAC thing that nothing else I have seems to have.

Another thing I do is in General I use the drop down menu to choose Player Only-no media browser. This way it opens with a little player and all I need to do if I do want the Real site with all the stuff to watch is click the tab on the player.

If you set up this stuff when you first install it it's easier since you wouldn't need to open up your other players like you do now. Now you've got to set WMP, Winamp, Quicktime, whatever, to tell them what stuff you want them to take back as when you opened RealPlayer to do this stuff it stole all the file types. Now, it won't do that anymore.

Next time you start with a fresh system, don't just click next when installing RealPlayer, but look for the screen that "Recommends" that you have RealPlayer play all supported media types. Uncheck that and choose to customize. Do there what you did now to just leave the Real types checked.

Pretty easy. There's no mythical spyware or file format stealer. Naturally any company that gives you something for free is probably going to by default want you to use it all the time and leave all its advertising (Message Center) options checked so you see all the ads. It's nice that we can turn it all off. Actually pretty surprising. It's ad supported but lets us turn off the ads!

 

ECK:
Now you are talking! I see the whole picutre now and I thank you for it. I hope the others that had contributed to this thread note your last response for it is right on the money. Thanks. I am going to print it up and save it. It's a **** good answer.

 

Real Player File Associations

This behavior is exactly why Real Player is not allowed on any of my machines anymore; it started doing exactly what they were suing Microsoft for.
When I last installed Real Player, it took over file associations it couldn't even handle, trashing an installation of Compton's Encyclopedia that could only be repaired with a format and reinstall of everything else. When, on top of that, they copped an attitude because an update I paid for wouldn't download, that was the last straw.
I understand about setting file associations when something installs, and have gained knowledge about changing them after the fact if something doesn't work right, but their software and their attitude became too aggressive and rude for my taste. Abuse me once, shame on you; abuse me twice and I will make sure everyone knows about my product experience.
Dave H

BTW, my current "product experience" is Norton SystemWorks 2005--I am formatting the drive on a second computer so I can be rid of it and install products that work without hosing the machine.