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#1
W7 refuses to let me set file associations. Registry hacks ineffective
I have mplayer as my primary video player and VLC installed as a backup. I always have to manually set mplayer to play video files by default as it's not an installable program; this is usually no problem and worked fine until yesterday, when I noticed videos were being opened with VLC instead when I doubleclicked them. I went to fix this, and found that not only is the "always open with" option greyed out ticked, but the change doesn't stick.
In order to avoid the usual canned replies I'll mention that I've already Googled and tried several registry hacks, not to mention two applications that are supposed to handle file associations better. Nothing worked. The apps remembered the setting I gave them, but Windows still opened the files with VLC.
This is what happens:
The video I want to play. Notice VLC icon.
Right click, select properties.
Click "change". Notice greyed-out option.
Click "browse", navigate to mplayer, doubleclick on executable.
It appears in the other programs list, but the option is still greyed out.
I click OK and it goes back to the properties page, with no change applied.
I've looked at other files, and this problem is not limited to video/VLC files; I can no longer change any default program. This is a big problem and I have to fix it. How do I do that?