I’m such a geek, I should know how to do this, but it’s escaping me right now.
When I click on an mp3 file using MIE, I want it to open using WinAmp, but invariable Quicktime grabs it first. m3u files open with WinAmp well enough, and when I double click on an mp3 file in Windows Explorer, it opens using WinAmp. I’ve been through the asscoiations under “My Computer” and all the mp3 associations are to WinAmp. How do I keep MIE from using Quicktime to open mp3 files in MIE and get them to associate with WinAmp?
One place you could try to look would be in the file associations in Quicktime.
Open Quicktime and go to Edit - Preferences - Quicktime Preferences and select File Type Associations from the drop down list. Click on the file types button and make sure MP3 is unchecked.
Nope … that was the first thing I tried; both the file assciation in Quicktime Itself and the ones in Windows XP. By any rights, it shouldn’t be recognizing them as Quicktime files, but it does.
If yuo mean the file is really a URL on a web page, then the issue is probably the difference between MIME encoding and file extensions.
The settings you and Byrnda were discussing tell Windows what program to launch based on the filename extension.
Meanwhile, any file downloaded through a browser has an attribute for its MIMEtype, which tells the browser what to do with it.
Bad guys exploited that by creating files whose extension didn’t match the MIMEtype, causing the browser to launch executables (files that were really .exes) which were named “.mp3” or some such but had a MIMEtype of executable.
So later-model browsers use the MIME type and not the extension to decide what to do with a file.
Ideally, the registry entries that ctrol MIME type mapping and those that control extension-based mapping would stay in sync. But not necessarily.
If you’re comfortable editing the registry, go to HKCR\MIME\Database\Content Type\audio/mp3. Compare the registry values under that to another file type which works like you want in your browser, such as audio/m3u.
If the values and/or subkeys differ, change the mp3 entries to match the m3u entries and you’ll probably be in business. The smart registry-hacker will export the audio/mp3 key tree before he diddles with it so he can restore it if problems ensue.
This advice is based on general MIME-handling knowledge in MIE, not specific experience with wrasslin with QuickTime. No warrantees are expressed or implied.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question, but can’t you Right Click>Open With>WinAmp and then check the box that says Always use this program to open this type of file?