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[dsipari]

I've just upgraded from MC 10.0 to MC 11.0 and have had a pretty big problem.
In my Music folder, all of my songs used to show as "Media Center" files, with the Media Center icon. With the new version, however, all of the icons have switched to the Windows default icon when it can't recognize a file!  Also, in the old MC, i was able to click on a song in My Music and it would launch Media Center and play the track.  NOW, however, when i click on a song, it tries to re-load Media Center altogether! Every time!
I've tried doing a system restore, but that didn't work at all.
Has anyone else had this problem?? If so, can you suggest a fix for me?
Thanks
Dsipari

PS..........the other strange thing is that when i click on a song in My Music, and it tries to re-load MC, it says that it detects another version of MC (10.0) and do i want to remove it.  If I say yes or no, the result is the same.........thanks again!

[glynor]

A couple of things appear to have happened.

(1) You installed MC 11.1 overtop of MC 10.  You can actually have both installed on your computer at once, and installing 11 does not automatically remove 10.

To fix this, I would:

(a) Go to Start --> Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs.  Then remove both MC 10 and MC 11 (I'd probably do 11 first, reboot, then remove 10).  Whenever it asks, don't remove your Library Files, only the program.

(b) When you are all done.  Reboot again.  (This is probably paraniod, but is a good habit to follow anyway.)

(c) Reinstall only 11.1 (I would use the version of 11.1 available here instead of 11.0.  11.1 hasn't officially been released yet, but it will be very soon so you might as well be using the current version).

Okay.  Once you've done the above you should have fixed your double-install problem.  In general with MC if you are going from one major version number (for example, switching from 11 to 12 as opposed to 11.1.122 to 11.1.124) it is a good idea to follow the above procedure.  Just make sure not to remove your library files and all should be cool.

Read on to fix the file type associations...

[glynor]

(2) Your file type associations somehow got hosed.  No big deal, this is easy to fix from inside MC.  However, to explain...

When you double click on a file inside Windows, the way the computer knows what program to use to open that file is by using the file's extension.  This is the part of the file name that comes after the last dot (eg. the ".mp3" in "my favorite band's song.mp3").  If you can't see this part of the file names then Windows is probably hiding it from you (annoyingly enough), and check step #1 in the next post for how to Un-hide the extensions.  Windows simply has a little table that it looks at that says "When the user opens a file called ",mp3" open it with "JRiver Media Center", and when the user opens a file called ".doc" open it with "Microsoft Word" and so on and so forth.  There's no real magic involved.  Windows doesn't know or care whether or not a file is ACTUALLY an MP3 or an AVI or a DOC filetype.

The way you access and manage this "table" I referred to is by opening up any folder, and then in the "Windows Explorer" window that appears you go to the Tools menu and choose Folder Options.  Switch to the File Types tab and you can see a huge list of all the "registered" extensions on your computer.  You can use this list, and the controls below to choose what programs get opened when you double click on ANY file type.  This is called a "File Type Association" because it associates a file type (for example all .avi files) with a program used to open that file type.

However, for Media Center files specifically, there is a much easier way to do this.  If you open up MC, and go to: the Tools menu and select Options.  Then, in the window that appears choose File Associations.  Then, in the window you can scroll through and choose the types of files you'd like MC to open.  If you're too lazy to sort through the big list and you just want MC to open every type of file it usually does, you can click the "checkmark" button (which puts it back to it's defaults).

As far as how this weird thing happened.  Who knows?  I'd have to have been watching all the times you've used the computer since last time it worked like a hawk to have picked it out.  Maybe you installed some new media software and then uninstalled it?  Maybe it got messed up some other way, who knows...

[glynor]

If you're curious and want to see proof that Windows really only knows what a file is by it's extension, you can try a little experiment...

(1) First, make sure you can see the extensions for your files.  The extensions are hidden by default on Windows XP (which is extremely dumb and leads to questions and problems like this), but it's easy to turn back on.  Open up any folder in Windows and go to the Tools menu again and choose Folder Options again.  This time switch to the Advanced tab and look for an option called "Hide extensions for known file types".  If it is checked, uncheck that bad boy.  Then close all those windows by clicking OK or closing them with their "X" (if there is no OK button).

(2) Create a text file on your desktop.  You can do this by Right Clicking and going to New --> Text Document.

(3) Give it a the name "test.txt" and open it up.  Type some text inside and save and close it.  (EG. "Hello world").

(4) Then right click on the file and choose Rename.  Change it's name to "test.mp3".  You'll get an error message that says you might break the file by changing it's extension.  That's what we're trying to do so click OK.

(5) Presto-chango it turns into a MP3 file and when you double click on it (assuming you followed the directions above to fix the association) it will open MC up.  Of course, it's not a VALID MP3 file, but Windows thinks it is, and that's how it decides what to do when you double click on a file to open it up.

(6) If you then close MC and change the filename back to "test.txt" you'll again get the error but this time if you click OK it will switch back to the way it was.  As you can see, Windows doesn't know anything other than what the file's extension is.

[dsipari]

Thanks, Glynor for the VERY helpful reply.  After i posted, i almost went back and added that i DO have MC version 11.1.........however, i'm going to follow your steps anyhow! 
I'll be back later to let you know what happened!!
dsipari

[dsipari]

Glynor;
Right now i'm in the middle of re-downloading MC 11.1.121.  I uninstalled the prior version, re-booted, and tried to uninstall version 10.0, but for some reason Windows won't let me.  Not that this is a full version, either.  In Add and Remove programs, MC 10.0 shows as only .26MB.....so, most of it got flushed during the prior install, i believe. Anyhow, when i click on un-install, it just flashes and nothing happens........still sitting there.  I even did a file search and found only a couple of MC 10 old files, which i deleted, but with the same results using Add & Remove programs.  Strange!!
Right now at 50% download......but, as i live in Bangkok, Thailand sometimes downloading takes a while! (even with 'broadband'!)
dsipari

PS.........i don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but when i upgraded from version 10.0 to version 11.1, i received an e-mail from JRiver with an attachment......a restore key, i believe.  This key is entitled MC 10-44597.mjr....................and i really don't remember if i used it or not when i converted to the new MC.  Could this be part of the problem??

[dsipari]

Glynor;
Well, the lengthy download was completed........and i re-installed v. 11.1.121....no problems.  I re-did the file association tab, and everything looks cool!  Thanks for your help!

By the way, during the installation, MC asked me if i wanted to eliminate version 10.0, to which i said 'yes'.......however, the same MC 10 .26 MB entry still appears on my Add & Remove Programs list........any idea what this is?  Should I still try to flush it??
thanks
dsipari

[glynor]

Bizarre.  I, personally, would probably just not worry about it if everything is working properly.  I would guess that, just as you guessed, MC 10 somehow got "partially uninstalled".  However, it sounds like it really got most of the way uninstalled.

The restore key you received from JRiver is sort of like your "serial" number that you'd need if you want to reinstall MC.  Hang onto it, but that certainly isn't what caused the problem.

Like I said though, if it isn't broken anymore I wouldn't try to fix it.  If it really bothers you that MC 10 is showing in the Add/Remove Programs control panel, you can use TweakUI to remove it from the list, but I probably wouldn't worry about it.  To actually find out what little piece didn't get removed you'd need someone from JRiver to answer and investigate...