I've just bought two original VCDs: George of the Dragon & After the Sunset. Both are new, from two different shops and both have a funny new program that's a video player, VLC media player. I like to use WinAmp or Power DVD to watch movies but this little bugger loads as the default.

I have kids and they love to watch VCDs and get their sticky fingers all over them, so I make a copy before I let them loose. Ususally I use Nero ROM but this little program is giving me hassle. It loads up (even though I've disabled AUTOPLAY) and subsequently Nero won't execute. I get the message:

C++ Runtime Error.

R6025 - pure virtual function call

when I attempt to run Nero.

It's called VideoLAN and I've emailed them on their help file address asking about this, and tried their website: http://www.videolan.org/ but it's down and out!

Does anyone know anything about this and how to get round it? I don't want to stop buying VCDs but if it looks like this is the standard for newly released movies - the problem's not going away...

look around for 'set programs access' in windows (I don't use XP) and set Power dvd to be the default. You can find this through searching in the help section. I use VideoLan and it is excellent at playing files nothing else will open, so don't chuck it out just yet.

I agree that VLC is a great video client. It will open almost anything and gives you great power over video playback. You can even de-sync the audio and video if, say, you want to stream the audio wirelessly to your stereo and need to adjust for the sound delay.

And, it will play any DVD, regardless of region, even if your PC's DVD player has the region coded in firmware.

Worth keeping.

VLC Media Player is a good little program that will play almost anything. It is also open source and is registered at http://sourceforge.net/ but I have never heard of it being bundled with VCDs. That raises warning flags in my mind.

If you disabled Autoplay for your CD drive, there is no reason why the program should start, though. But you need to disable it for each content type.

To do that, go to My Computer, right click on the drive and select Properties. For each content type in the drop-down menu, click on "Select an action to perform", click on "Take no action" from the list below it and then click on the Apply button. Repeat for each content type and when you're done, click on OK.

For another very powerful media player (handling HiDef transport streams etc) check out zoom player...

Thanks rss, that was my point! "Warning! Warning Will Robinson!"

I also rented some new VCDs recently, and they had VideoLAN on them too, made copying with Nero impossible!

I HAVE disabled AUTOPLAY for every media type, but the blamed thing STILL opens automatically!

I managed to log onto the VideoLAN Q&A forum the other day, posted my query and to date haven't had a single response - most odd! I'm aware it's open source, but I wouldn't have a clue where to begin tinkering with it.

Yes, it does seem like a handy piece of software to have (re: multi DVD regions etc), but only if you can control it...

Dunno about you XP users, but in W2K you right click a file, and 'Open With" and then choose your program. there is a box that says 'always open this kind of file with this program' and voila.

Otherwise goto program access and defaults settings - it's there somewhere.

Thanks rss, that was my point! "Warning! Warning Will Robinson!"

I also rented some new VCDs recently, and they had VideoLAN on them too, made copying with Nero impossible!

I HAVE disabled AUTOPLAY for every media type, but the blamed thing STILL opens automatically!

I managed to log onto the VideoLAN Q&A forum the other day, posted my query and to date haven't had a single response - most odd! I'm aware it's open source, but I wouldn't have a clue where to begin tinkering with it.

Yes, it does seem like a handy piece of software to have (re: multi DVD regions etc), but only if you can control it...

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If that didn't work, you can try the following which I found on another forum:

Go to Microsoft's web site and download TweakUI for Windows XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/dow...s/powertoys.asp

Install it. Start it by clicking on Start/Programs/Powertoys for Windows XP/TweakUI for Windows XP. When in the program, click the + by MyComputer and the one by Autoplay.

Next click the Drives menu and then uncheck any drive you desire to disable autoplay on. Next, click on Apply. Then, click on Types and clear the check mark for Removable drives and click on Apply.

It is important to click on apply after changes have been made to each window before going onto the next window.