How *TF* does RealPlayer kidnap my files?! (And how can I make it stop?)

General Questions
#1

I recently installed iTunes for Windows. Great program. The first time I ran it it asked me if I wanted to associate MP3s et al with iTunes. I said yes. Went into my MP3 directory - all the icons are now iTunes icons. Played a track. Went back into the directory to play another track and whaddya know - they’ve all changed back to RealPlayer icons. So I manually changed the filetype association back to iTunes, played another track, and, naughty naughty RealPlayer, it’s kidnapped my filetype again. Grrrr.

So, first, how does it do it? RealPlayer isn’t running, it’s not running as a systray agent, nor as a background process - I checked with TaskManager. I’m guessing something in the registry.

Secondly, how can I stop this highly irritating behaviour?

Help me make RealPlayer my bitch.

#2

Bumpsky.

C’mon… surely someone knows?

#3

Not really sure on the answer but here is a guess. Do you still have Real Player as your default player? You may have to change that in your RealPlayer set up.

Is this just a preference that you have the iTunes icon? I either use RealOne or Windows Media Player. Media Player will still play the file even though it has the RealOne icon. I never gave the icon much thought.

Or do you have to change the set up everytime you want to use iTunes?

#4

I think you might want to refer to this recent Pit thread.

#5

Open RealPlayer (I’m using an old version–6.0.9.xxxxxxx…, so your setup may differ slightly).

Select the menu item “View” --> “Preferences…”

The fourth tab in, “Upgrade”, may have the demon in it.

At the bottom of the popup, there’s a button that says “Auto Restore Settings…” Click that, and a list of filetypes will pop up. Uncheck everything, else RP will likely make them all its own.

#6

RealPlayer puts an entry for TkBell.exe in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run whenever it is run. There is apparently no way to disable this behavior within the program. You can either delete the entry manually every time or use a less-dastardly program, such as Media Player Classic.

#7

And my instructions may be further made useless by the fact that I run a mac…

#8

No, mentioning the icon was just my way of saying which filetype association it was - the bastard was kidnapping the files remotely. Weird. Anyway, I’ve just uninstalled the piece of crap and installed an alternative.

Thanks anyway.

#9

That is totally weird - only NYR407’s first post was there when I posted - the other five responses weren’t. I must have got a cached version of the page or something.

Anyway, thanks all.