How can I get AOL to let go of RealPlayer and use WinAmp?

Factual Questions
1

The way to get around it is to stop using AOL and use another ISP.

2

I don’t know anything about AOL, avoid Real Player, and use Winamp. (I’m not making opinions on your usage, just giving you my credentials, as it were…)

AOL owns Nullsoft, which created Winamp. Even given the above, I’m SURE Winamp can work with AOL.

I would try this. Uninstall all 3. Reinstall Winamp. Reinstall AOL.

Do some research to see if there are any registry keys that RealPlayer makes that aren’t deleted on uninstall.

More folks will be along to answer by morning. Welcome to the Boards!

3

Not sure what version of AOL you’re using, but if you go under settings, then preferences, then multimedia, you should be able to uncheck the button that makes the AOL player the default player. I think that may be what you’re talking about.
-Lil

4
      • Or you can go rooting around in the registry. You didn’t say what operating system you had, but in one portion of the registry you will have data for all the applications you have installed. In WIn98, it’s “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”, and that has a sub-folder named “software”, and in that is a folder for each program installed that has registry data. Look for the one for AOL, and then look around inside it–somewhere will be a folder that is named “media” or something similar, and somewhere inside that will be the paths to the programs that AOL uses for different media types. Chop away. If you can use Winamp to play other files, then AOL’s preference is almost certainly set in the AOL subfolder. -If there’s one for Real files, then you’d want to leave that one set to RealPLayer, obviously.
  • If ALL your media files were stuck going to RealPlayer, then there’s another folder that sets the default applications for all the file extensions. In Win98 it’s named “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT”, and it has a folder for each file extension, and inside the folder for any file extension is the path to the default program used to handle that file.

BTY, back up the registry first, carefully note changes (write them down on a piece of paper, because if you messes somthing up the computer may not start fully until you fix it), ect.
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