Windows XP "Change Default Media Player" Example:
There are several methods to select the default media player. This example is one of the easiest and less complicated.
A movie file from us can be one of three types; MPG or MPEG, WMV, or AVI.
You first need to know where one of your media files is stored on your hard drive. Click on the "My Comuter" icon on your desktop. Select a drive, such as drive C then select the folder where your movies are stored. If you don't know where they are, then we cannot help you. The default place is your temporary internet cache, which is not a good place. We have a separate article on how to save movies to your hard drive. You may wish to read it first. |
|
Decide with format you wish to change, mpg, wmv, or avi. First find the folder where your movies are stored such as in the example to the right.
Let's say that you have stored all your movies in on your C drive, in the folder named downloaded movies. Left click on that directory.
|
 |
|
Then select a playable movie. Note that this one has the .mpg extension. Also note that it has the Windows Media Player icon just to the left of the filename. That indicates the default player is the Media Player. |
 |
|
Touch the filename with your mouse then Right click over the filename. A menu will appear. Select Properties at the bottom of the list as in the example to the right: |
 |
|
Another menu appears. In this example the Windows Media Player is already chosen as the default media player. In the General tab left click on the CHANGE option. |
 |
 |
|
You will then find the media player program to change to, that is, to be your default media player.Once you select a different player, the default icon will change and when you click on a movie to play, our default player will play the movie. Here we are highlighting the Windows Media Player. But you may wish to change to another version of Media Player, or change to Real Player, or the Apple QuickTime player. If you do not know how to find the program to select, then you will need to ask someone to help because helping you to use your computer beyond this simple example is far beyond the scope of what we can do for you. There are simply too many examples. |