Real Player Took over my computer

Gary Ulinskas · Post by **Gary Ulinskas** » 2 Aug 2004 5:56 am

I somehow recently downloaded the latest version of Real Player. Now, all my former MP3 files have a "R" icon on them. Instead of my files playing on WINAMP everything plays on REAL PLAYER. But I don't seem to be able to get any sound out of new files I download. I gt a message telling me I have a "network problem" and I have exceeded my time limit for reaching the REAL PLAYER server.
How do I get rid of REAL PLAYER as my default music software and go back to WINAMP?
Thanks.

Charles French · Post by **Charles French** » 2 Aug 2004 6:09 am

Hmm, I think you can open your MP3 folder and right click on a song and choose "Open With" specify the player to always use to open your song files.

Gary Ulinskas · Post by **Gary Ulinskas** » 2 Aug 2004 6:47 am

Chuck;
Thanks for the reply. \
Yes, I can do what you say for old files.
This AM I went to Andy Sandoval's post in Steel Players on THE BAKERSFIELD SOUND and tried to download a few audio clips. When the "File Save" menu comes up, in the "Save As" box I have 2 choices, "*.ram" (which I think is for Real Player) and "All Files". I've tried both and I get an "R" icon on my desk top with the file name (Bill Woods From Bakersfield), but there is no content in it that will play on MP3 or Real Player. Real Player appears to be wanting to contact it's server and pull the music up for me, but since I am not a subscriber, it comes up dry.
I think what I have to do is figure out a way to replace "*.ram" with winamp, but it must be hidden way somewhere in my control panel because the screen cannot be edited on the desktop.

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Gary Ulinskas
MSA S-12 + Walker mono

[This message was edited by Gary Ulinskas on 02 August 2004 at 07:49 AM.][This message was edited by Gary Ulinskas on 02 August 2004 at 07:51 AM.]

Doug Ferguson · Post by **Doug Ferguson** » 2 Aug 2004 7:13 am

Andy's audio page (at least the page I found on his site) has nothing but real player files which have the .ram suffix on them, which signifies that it is a real player document. You can't play them with anything but real player to my knowledge. Some people like real player, but I'm not one of them and I refuse to install it on my computers. I use nothing but quicktime, winamp and windows media player.

Steinar Gregertsen · Post by **Steinar Gregertsen** » 2 Aug 2004 7:17 am

Real Player is well known for hijacking systems this way.
Try opening your Real Player and go to 'options', then uncheck all the filetypes you don't want to associate with it. Then you open Winamp (or the player of your choice) and do the opposite, check all the filetypes you want it to play, this should do the trick.
There used to be a general setting for this in the old Win98, but I can't find it in WinXP (could very well be there still, but I can't remember how to find it...)

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 02 August 2004 at 08:18 AM.]

Doug Ferguson · Post by **Doug Ferguson** » 2 Aug 2004 7:18 am

Most media players, i.e. quicktime, winamp, real player, etc. have built in to the installer the ability to change the file associations of any and sometimes all media files on your computer so that the default player for those types of media files is the new application you just installed. Usually, somewhere in the install, it gives you options to make it the default player for several types of media files. If it gives this option, I usually refuse it. Even more irritating, it the ones that every time you open them to play a file, they ask you to make them the default player of that type of file. Again, I usually refuse, unless it is the application I want to be the default player...

Tommy Mc · Post by **Tommy Mc** » 2 Aug 2004 9:15 am

Well, I'm still in the last century, using Win98, so this may not apply to newer versions, but if you go to Start>Settings>Folder Options and click the tab for "File Types" you can specify which programs will open any file type, including your media files.

Gary Ulinskas · Post by **Gary Ulinskas** » 2 Aug 2004 10:08 am

Hi guys. Thanks for the info. I went into REAL PLAYER and looked for "OPTIONS" and could not find it but did find "PROPERTIES" and unchecked the boxes.
Then I went to my control panel(WIN XP) under "ADD REMOVE PROGRAMS" and opened "SET PROGRAM ACCESS AND DEFAULTS" and clicked on the "NON MICROSOFT" button. Sure enought, REAL PLAYER was my default media player. I unchecked it and checked WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER as my default.
Now, when I open my old MP3 folder the "R" icons are gone and replaced by the Windows media icon. Whew!!!
But just realized looking at the BAKERSFIELD SOUND website that at the bottom of their menu is a REAL PLAYER icon + instructions on how to download REAL PLAYER. Guess this means that if I want to hear their stuff I have to go thru this again. No thanks.
Thanks for all the inputs.

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Gary Ulinskas
MSA S-12 + Walker mono

John Fabian · Post by **John Fabian** » 2 Aug 2004 12:51 pm

The .ram file is a text file that points to the location of the .rm file which is the real sound file.

Right click the link and save to your computer.
Then open the file with a text editor (notepad, etc.). Copy the link location which will be something like http://www.theurl.com/listentothis.rm
Paste the link in your browser and your default application for sound files should open it or you may end up downloading the sound file to your computer by using this method

John[This message was edited by John Fabian on 02 August 2004 at 01:56 PM.]

David Cobb · Post by **David Cobb** » 2 Aug 2004 2:18 pm

Doing a Google search, "Realplayer+spyware" will bring up many examples of why a person wouldn't want Realplayer in their machine.

Bill Moore · Post by **Bill Moore** » 3 Aug 2004 4:10 am

I always hated having Real Player on my computer, and all the problems that come with it. I have been using a program called Real Alternative, which enables you to play Real filesvand, without the aggravation.

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 4 Aug 2004 3:51 pm

Hi Bill, how do you do that? I hate Real Player.....al

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

Bill Moore · Post by **Bill Moore** » 5 Aug 2004 4:17 am

Al, just download the program, click here
and install it. I only use this to play Real files, so I don't have it as the default media player. Like all the other players, it wants to become the default player, but you just select the types of files to be used by this program.