Originally Posted by
allan907
With the burgeoning use of broadband I find I am getting a lot of .wmv files sent to me. Unfortunately every time I open them up it opens up RealPlayer which then searches for updates and tells me that there are none to support that file.
I'm sure that the file would open with WMP (it is installed on my system) but how the hell do I change from one to the other as a preference? And can I switch and change at will?
Real Player installs itself in a way almost bordering on Spyware in the older versions - they gave one no options to change the Real Networks changing many media file associations on your computer to the Real Player. The newer install of RealP can, if you are brave and do the Advanced Install and watch for it, allow one to keep the original file associations intact.
The suggestions Spanners gave will work in Explorer for that extension and is probably the best solution if that is the only issue.
Another way would be to un-install Real Player, re-install Windows Media Player from MS at
www.microsoft.com/mediaplayer - you will be redirected and are given choices of MP 11, 10 and older versions here then get the latest Real Player and install using advanced options.
My suggestion above is not without risk, but should return your computer to normal XP file associations, where media player opens AVIs, MPEGs, WMVs, WMAs, WAVs and more.
Good Luck!