Remove Windows Media Player from Winows 7

[izghitu]

Hi,

I have Windows 7 64bit.

After I installed it, everything was fine except the part where I wanted to configure Mplayer(www.mplayerhq.hu) to be used for all movie extensions.

I right-clicked a .avi movie, Open With, Choose Default Program, Browse, selected the Mplayer executable and checked the checkbox that says to use Mplayer always to open this kind of files.

Normally(in WindowsXP and Windows Vista) next time I just double-click any .avi file and it opens with Mplayer. Instead in Windows 7 when double-clicked an .avi file, it automatically opened Windows Media Player. After this each time I right-click, Open With, Browse, select Mplayer, the checkbox that says "Use this program to always..." is simply grayed out. I tried to add the NoFileAssociation registry thing but it does not help. No matter what I do, Windows 7 forces me to use Windows Media Player by default.

I got mad, rebooted and started WindowsXP from a liveCD, changed ownership of the two(program files 32bit and 64bit) wmplayer.exe executables and removed them. Then I copied mplayer in the Windows Media Player directory and renamed it to wmplayer.exe. After rebooting to Windows 7, when I double click a movie I can see that it tries to open using the renamed wmplayer.exe mplayer but it does not work because most likely it passes some parameters to the command line which mplayer does not understand.

Situations like this one when the stupid Microsoft forces you to use the stupid Windows Media Player makes me throw the Windows CD out of the window.

Please tell me how do I remove Windows Media Player completely out of my new Windows 7 and how do I make my .avi movies open using Mplayer when I double-click them.

Please help.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[rsvr85]

Welcome izghitu
To uninstall WMP, open the control panel;
Control Panel > Programs > Tun Windows features on or off > expand the media features folder, and uncheck WMP, reboot.
Hope this helps.

 

[izghitu]

Ok, Finally I removed WMP. Thanks for your reply.

But I have another problem now. The checkbox that says to use mplayer always for this kind of files is grayed out and I can't make mplayer the default program for .avi files.

Please help.

 

[rsvr85]

What happens if you just double click on the .avi file?
It should prompt you to making a decision on the default program that opens it.
Can you open the .avi from within mplayer?

 

[izghitu]

all .avi files now have no icon
when I double click them, I get prompted to choose a program.
The always use... checkbox is grayed out so I need to browse for mplayer each time I double click an avi file.

How do I ungray that checkbox?

Looking at control panel - default programs - extensions and protocols I can see that mplayer is the default for .avi but that does not help.

 

[rsvr85]

In the start search box, type regedit and hit enter;
navigate to;
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.avi

Expand the .avi key and click on OpenWithList, make sure there is only "a" with a .exe (if there's "b", delete it, MRUList is OK too), double click on "a" in the right hand pane and enter the executable name of mplayer.
Then, delete the userchoice key.



Exit regedit, reboot and report

 

[izghitu]

In the OpenWithList I had nothing. I added a string called a with the value mplayer.exe

After removing the userchoice key the "always use..." checkbox got ungrayed and I can finaly use mplayer as the default player

Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[rsvr85]

You're welcome, i'm glad it's sorted

 

[izghitu]

How do I change the name of the thread to Solved?

 

[rsvr85]

How do I change the name of the thread to Solved?

I've just done it, but for future reference, click the warning sign on the post you want marked, type solved and fire it off the the mod team