Changing your default DVD player on Windows XP

It’s easy enough making your favorite DVD player auto-play DVD’s (that is when you put the DVD into the computer and the DVD player automatically opens to play the DVD). You simply right click on your DVD drive icon, go to properties, select the auto-play tab, and choose your DVD player from the list.

That works fine for that specific situation, but what if you want to watch the DVD later.

You have a few choices here:
1) You could open and close the DVD tray. This would cause the auto-play to kick in again. What a pain!
2) You could click start – programs – (Your DVD Player). Again, who wants to do that?
3) You could make a shortcut to the DVD player on your Desktop. This is better, but is it really necessary?
4) You could open my computer and double click the DVD drive. You know… the intuitive way. That opens a different DVD player you say? Yeah, how annoying.

Here’s how you can change that.

Registry editing time! Click start – run – type in ‘regedit’.

Navigate to:
HKEY_Classes_root\DVD\Shell\Play\Command\

Edit the ‘DefaultValue’ and change to “<path to your dvd player> /DVD “%L”

Close regedit, and give it a try.