media player that doesn't use registry?

[fisix]

i'm looking for a media player that doesn't require tinkering with the registry. i have an office laptop that i don't have enough rights on to install the regular players.

is there such a beast? is there one that can call local copies of codec dlls and still be able to play divx and xvid files?

basically at the very minimum i'd like to get to the point where i could listen to vbr mp3s, even with the old windows media player if that were possible, but i don't think it is without editing the reg.

feel free to flame away if this is a stupid question... but i think this might have some other reasons to exist, like portable thumb drives that carry the media AND the player so that you can play media at any windows computer without having to go through the process of installing a player and codecs.

i thought zoomplayer had a version that was registry free, but i couldn't find it mentioned.

thanks

-fisix

[stax76]

I think there is a media player ported from Linux that does not need registry or system codecs, it's called mplayer

[KpeX]

Both vlc (http://www.videolan.org/vlc) and mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu) are registry free as far as I know and don't use directshow/vfw interfaces. See their respective documentations for information on where the config files are.

[Brother John]

And there's Media Player Classic (http://www.gabest.org). Just check "Use ini file" in the options when you run it for the first time.
However in your case vlc or mplayer should be better, because they have their own built-in mpeg4-decoders, so no need for installing one that could possibly need reg access.

[fisix]

good suggestions, all

the check box in media player classic is what i thought i remembered in zoom player.


what i ended up going with is vlc. the win32 binaries i found for mplayer wouldn't also play mp3s, and even then it just didn't work as easily.

thanks much for your help

-fisix