Windows 10 comes pre-installed with its own set of audio and video players. Then there is Windows Media Player in case you want a feature rich media player for Windows 10. However, the default media player in Windows 10 may not be appealing to some users even though it comes with feature such as the ability to buy your favorite music known as Music Pass. A premium service allowing you to get access to millions of tracks online. But, for those who want to use VLC Media player as the primary media player in Windows 10, here is how to do it. By default, Windows 10 comes with Microsoft’s own Music and Video Players set as default Music and Media apps. Fortunately, you can change the default Media Player in Windows 10 to any other Media Player that you have installed on your PC. In this case, it is VLC Media Player. You can set VLC media player as default Media Player in Windows 10. There are two ways to do it, and we will be looking at both the ways here in this post. Method 1: Set VLC Player as Default Media Player in Windows 10 Note: Before you set any app as the default app in Windows, make sure you have installed the app on your PC. Windows 10 allows you to set default apps for different file types in the settings. To do this, follow these steps. Open All Settings by click on Start. Under Settings, click on System option. From the left side, click on Default Apps. Under Choose Default Apps section, you can see the list of data types for which you can select default apps. Scroll down and find Music Player. Click on Music and then select VLC Media Player from the result to set it as Default Music App in Windows 10. Again scroll down and find Video Player. Click on the current default Media Player app and from Choose an App section click on VLC Media Player to set it as default video player. Now close Settings window and try to play a video or music files by double clicking on it. Since you have set VLC Media Player as default Media Player, the file should play in VLC Media Player from now on. In case you want to revert the changes in future and set all the default apps to its default state (factory state) then Go to All Settings >> System >> Default Apps >> scroll down and click Reset. Method 2: Set VLC Player as Default Media Player in Windows 10 The second method involves setting a particular media file type to open with VLC Media Player. It comes in handy if you don’t want to set all the Media File types to open in the same Media Player. Follow these steps to know how to do it. Download a video or audio file that you want to open with VLC Media Player. If you have it saved in PC, then go to the folder where it is stored. For the reference, I will be using an MP4 file in this tutorial. Right-click on the MP4 file and from the option hover the cursor over Open with and select Choose another app. Now a “How do you want to open this file?” dialogue box will appear. Under Other options click on VLC Media Player. Also, check the box at the bottom saying Always use this app to open .MP4 files. Click on OK and you have set VLC Media Player as a default app to open MP4 files in Windows 10. Repeat same steps if you want to set VLC Media Player as the default app for MP3 and other formats as well.
