Usually making VLC or any video player default, to be used whenever your click to run a video file, is as easy as going to “Default app settings” in the Windows Settings. However, the other day I wasn’t able to make VLC default.

Running a video file, Windows Media Player opened and started playing, although I thought that VLC was already defined as the default video player. Then I right clicked on that file and selected to open it with VLC, simultaneously checking the option to always open this type with VLC. No Joy! VLC opened, but next time I clicked to run a file, Windows Media Player was used again!

Trying to change this setting globally by going to Windows Settings > Default app settings, I was surprised to see that Windows refused to make VLC the default video player! I tried several times, and Windows kept refusing to accept VLC as the default player. I even removed Windows Media Player completely, without success after that in making VLC default!

Here is a solution that finally worked. I installed VLC again, being careful to run the setup file by right clicking on it and opening it “as administrator”. Upon installation I chose VLC as the default player for video files only (I use Winamp for audio). When installation was complete I right clicked a video file and opened it with VLC, checking also the option for this type of files to always open with VLC. That was it! Even the global setting at Default app settings was updated featuring VLC as the default video player.