Keep QuickTime from Being Default for Internet Links

Hi b noir, QuickTime Kirk, and Jacumba,

Thank you all very much for your continued interest.

In a nutshell, what happens with these computers is that they are wiped completely clean and start afresh every few hours from an "image" of the operating system. Thus, there is no history at all, of anything at all, at that point. It is a very quick way for public installations to remove all the junk people like to put on the computers. Here is a tutorial on how to do it for XP:
http://blog.hishamrana.com/2006/02/22/how-to-image-windows-xp-with-ghost-and-sys prep/

Thus, it is important that whatever settings are in the image are actually the ones that the system is going to use. What appears to be happening with QuickTime is that the first time you try to access an mp3 link (which it for some reason associates with an MPEG audio file), something undoes your wish that it NOT be QuickTime, and checks "MPEG audio" for QuickTime in the QuickTime MIME settings. Actually, this morning, it actually took TWO clicks and not just one, before the invalid check mark appeared -- but QuickTime still came up on the second click. Then I went into the QuickTime control panel -- again -- and unclicked the MPEG audio MIME setting -- again -- and this time it took. It would continue to be OK, now, I think, from this point on.

I think why you can do it on your computer, Jacumba, is that you are not starting from scratch -- and that will be hard to duplicate. You are essentially where I am now, beyond the funny business at startup, and everything will appear to work as it should with your selections in the check boxes.

It is only at startup that there is a problem. However, the way these computers are being used, in starting from scratch every few hours, that's a critical step for them. If the system administrator can't make a selection that holds right from the get-go from the image, he is right in saying that "the only way to do it is to uninstall QuickTime and not have it on the system." He spent a lot of time on this and is an extremely competent fellow, so I do not take what he says lightly. He said he does not want to spend any more time on it, and that is why I am trying to see if there might be something simple. I'm beginning to believe he is right.

Unless it is possible to prevent QuickTime from undoing your selections -- right from the beginning, and not at some later point -- the only way students will see Windows Media Player as default, as desired, when they turn on the computers is to not have QuickTime on them.

Hi b noir,

Thanks again for the continued interest in this question. Sorry about the delayed response -- yesterday was Veterans Day holiday here.

To answer your question about when QuickTime gets on the system, it is included in the image. I do have access to the control panel, and it is one of the programs that appears there. I can click on the control panel icon and get to the QuickTime control panel.

I think you may have hit on what is causing this bizarre behavior. When I go to the control panel initially, just as you found, there is an MPEG media entry, but no MPEG audio. So, even if I uncheck everything, and try the test .mp3 link, up it comes in QuickTime. The first time I did it this morning, I looked again at the control panel, and everything appeared unchecked as I'd left it. So, I clicked the test link again, and still it came up in QuickTime. (This was like the "twice" instead of "once" I mentioned the other day.) This time, though, when I opened the control panel MIME settings, there was a brand new checked entry, MPEG audio, which hadn't been there before! This time, when I unchecked it and tried the .mp3 link again -- guess what? -- Windows Media Player came up!

I think you may have found what the problem is. It appears that the MPEG audio needs to be an option on the control panel settings and initially isn't. For some reason, if you keep clicking links enough times (once, twice, and I've even gone up to five times), something or other adds the MPEG audio to the control panel, checked, and you can then uncheck it and it sticks.

I was thinking myself along the lines I think you are about the image. I've never made one of them, but the system administrator is an expert at it. I wonder if he could manually push through all this bizarre control-panel behavior once before making the image, and if the system state with the correct QuickTime options would come up when the image reinstalls the operating system -- or whether it will always sort of revert to ground zero. I'll have to ask him.

Nice detective work!

Hi b noir,

This morning, I showed the computer administrator what you had discovered. In particular, I went through how you had to uncheck everything on the QuickTime control form, say OK. I showed him that there was no "MPEG audio" entry with checkbox, as we both think there should be -- that this is the root of the bizarre behavior. I showed him that then you click an online mp3 file, and watch it come up in QuickTime. Then you look at the QuickTime control form again, and see if a checked "MPEG audio" link has appeared. Usually it does the first time you click the online link, but I've had it happen that I had to click it up to five times, with the link coming up in QuickTime and no "MPEG audio" entry appearing each time. You are after getting the checked "MPEG audio" entry to appear, so you can then click it and say OK. That does it. Then Windows Media Player comes up the next time you click the link. It appears that the checked "MPEG audio" entry needs to be on the control form so you can uncheck it. For unknown reasons it is not there initially, but for equally unknown reasons if you click a test .mp3 link enough times, you eventually get it to appear.

The administrator's eyes really lit up when finally the link started coming up in Windows Media Player. He said it really bugged him that he couldn't get it to be the default. He actually did not know either if it would hold in the image. He said that Windows actually reinstalls some of the operating system from scratch, so he wasn't sure. He was going to try it out and see if it would hold in the image. He is very busy right now, so it may be some days before he has a chance to do it.

Thank you very much for your fine work! We are very grateful for your efforts, and don't think that very many people would have been astute enough to see what the problem was! Nice going!