I installed an app called ZoomPlayer. It's a media player that I
prefer to use instead of Windows Media Player or any of the other
ones. The problem is that only some of the media files launch
ZoomPlayer when clicked. For instance, AVI files have the ZoomPlayer
icon and when I go to "Folder Options"|"File Types" and look at the
AVI extension it says "Opens with: zplayer" (zplayer is ZoomPlayer).
However, every single time I click on an AVI file it pops up an "Open
With" dialog box. Ok, so I scroll down to the bottom of the list and
select "zplayer" and I make sure the "Always use this program to open
these files" checkbox is checked and then I click ok. At that point it
opens ZoomPlayer and it plays the AVI file correctly. However, if I
click on that file again, it will pop up that message again. No matter
how many times I do it, it never remembers to open zplayer.

MPG files open correctly. MPEG files do not open correctly, but if I
rename them to be MPG files then they do open correctly. ASF files do
not open correctly. In fact, it appears that right now only MPG files
will open without popping up that open with dialog box.

How can I fix this?

Hello mxnmatch,

Thank you for your question. 

I was going to post a solution that has worked for me in the past, but
wanted to find at least one page that has the same recommendation. I
did:

http://www.wugnet.com/tips/display.asp?ID=685
WUGNET Tip of the Day

"Fixing Lost File Associations 

In past tips, we've shown you a couple of great association tricks,
like Multiple Associations Made Easy and How to override an
association, but have you ever wanted to get rid of one? Perhaps
you've accidentally associated a particular file extension with the
wrong application, or an association was left behind by some
application that you uninstalled long ago. Don't bother trying to fix
it from within Windows Explorer's File types dialog box - there's no
way to remove a single extension from a registered file type without
deleting the entire entry and starting over. See below.


Instead, use Windows 95's version of the Windows 3.x File Manager,
(Start, Run, winfile). Once File Manager opens, pull down the File
menu and select the Associate... command. When the Associate dialog
box appears, type the extension that you want to get rid of in the
Files with Extension text box. When you do, you'll see the errant file
association appear in the Associate With text box. To remove the file
association, scroll to the top of the list of file types, select
(None), and then click OK.

Once this broken association is removed, you can associate the file
type with the "right" application by right-clicking on one of the
files (in this case, any .GIF) then choose Open With and browse for
the right application. Normally, Open With only appears on the
right-click menus of items that have no association. "

Personally, I would do this a slightly different way:

Go to File Types and find the associations that are not working for
you. Use "REMOVE" to eliminate these associations. Now reboot.

Now, re-associate these file types as you have done in the past by
clicking a file, choosing open with Zoom Player and "Always use..."
They should stick now.

Do let me know if either of these methods are successful for you.


Search Strategy:

"file association" +lost OR remembered OR stick

I trust my research has helped you solve this problem. If a link above
should fail to work or anything require further explanation or
research, please do post a Request for Clarification prior to rating
the answer and closing the question and I will be pleased to assist
further.

Regards,

-=clouseau=-

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Request for Answer Clarification by mxnmatch-ga on 07 Apr 2003 16:52 PDT

Deleting file associations and then creating them again didn't work by
itself, but I found out that if I deleted each file association and
then created it again with the "File Type" column set to be "MPEG
Video" then it works fine. If I changed it to "Video Clip" or anything
else then it won't work.

I don't know why that worked, but it does.

---

Clarification of Answer by clouseau-ga on 07 Apr 2003 17:08 PDT

Good news. 

I'm glad you have this working again for you.

-=clouseau=-