Because we recommend VLC player so often & because people sometimes have trouble with working out how to use VLC...here are a few tips to start you off

To download VLC use this link
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

You'll be sent to a page with a list of mirror sites for download.

Choose the mirror nearest to where you live. If there's no mirror site in your country, don't panic...just try one on the list (I'm in Australia & have downloaded from both France & Sweden without a problem). If, for some reason, the installer won't download...choose another mirror.

Once you've installed VLC, the next step is to make it your default player for video files...

Making VLC your default player
Go to your LW library, click on Saved Files then click Explore...your saved folder will open. Now right click on a video file > open with > choose program. Select VLC from the list & tick the box to 'always use the selected program to open this kind of file'. Click ok.
*People who've been using Windows Media Player as their default player might find that even after making VLC their default player, things still open with WMP. In this case, change the file types that WMP associates with...
Open WMP > tools > options > file types. Now untick all the file types that you want VLC to play (& don't want WMP to play). Click Apply & ok.

If you're using LimeWire version 4.12.6 or earlier
Those people using LW versions 4.12.6 & older will find that they can't preview or launch files using VLC within LW. That's no problem, it's easy to do this outside of LW. To preview a video go to LW's library, click on Incomplete Files then click Explore...the incomplete folder opens & you can preview with VLC from there by double clicking, or by dragging the file into VLC.


When wanting to preview, after pressing the Explore button, click on view > details. Now you may see a 'Date Modified' column. Double click on this column to arrange files with the most recent incompletes at the top of the list. If you don't see date modified...clicking on view > choose details gives you the optons of which details you'd like to show within the incomplete folder. Click 'ok' to save your choices. *Thanks to LOTR.

To launch a completed download go to LW's library, click on Saved Files then click Explore...the saved folder opens & you can launch the file from there by double clicking, or by dragging the file into VLC.

If you're using LimeWire 4.13.0 Beta
People using 4.13.0 will be able to preview & launch files from within LW. You can preview either from the search page by clicking the Preview button or by opening your library, clicking on Incomplete Files, highlighting a file & clicking the Launch button. If you preview in this way it will save you a little bit of space because no preview file is created (as it normally would be if you preview from the search page).
You can launch a file within LW by going to LW's library, clicking on Saved files, highlighting the file you want to play & then clicking the Launch button.

For further help with VLC, check the wiki below
http://wiki.videolan.org/index.php/Main_Page

And there's a VideoLAN forum. Please use their search first, to see whether your question's already been answered, before posting
http://forum.videolan.org/