A multimedia player is still crucial for Windows computers, despite many people switching to internet streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, or BBC iPlayer to watch their favorite shows, movies, and cartoons.

You will eventually need a high-quality media player for work, even if you don’t often enjoy watching media content from CDs, DVDs, or Blu-ray discs on your desktop or laptop. When that occurs, you should switch to VLC Media Player.

Because of its widespread use, VLC Media Player hardly needs an introduction. It’s a cross-platform media player that works with Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and even Apple TV, and it’s free and open source.

It allows you to watch videos and listen to music from various sources, including local files, networked destinations, webcams, and external devices. It comes standard with all the codecs you need to play any video file, so there’s no need to download and install any additional codec packs.

VLC Media Player system requirements

VLC is an efficient media player without additional software or hardware to play media files. These Windows editions are supported:

• Windows 10, 8.1, 8, and 7 (both 32-bit and 64-bit)

Depending on your computer’s architecture, you can choose between a 32-bit or 64-bit installation file.

How to install VLC Media Player

You can choose between a desktop installation and a portable version of VLC to meet your needs. Setup is where you change the installer’s language, read the terms of service, and decide which features you want to install.

Disc playback, file type associations for audio, video, and other media, context menu integration, and desktop shortcuts are all part of the installation. The installation path can be changed, and any lingering preferences or cache can be purged automatically.

However, the portable version of VLC Media Player can be unzipped wherever you wish on your computer or a mobile storage device like a USB flash drive. This allows the media player to be launched immediately upon being inserted into any Windows PC without the need for any initial configuration or elevated privileges.

VLC Media Player’s interface

VLC Media Player’s graphical interface is surprisingly straightforward and well-organized, given its sheer number of features and customization options. Complete personalization is possible for the primary and time toolbars, full-screen controllers, and superior widgets.

The media controls are located at the bottom of the screen, while the rest of the options are accessible via the menu bar and the right-click context menu. Media, Playback, Audio, Video, Subtitle, Tools, and View are the primary tabs along the top. The same options are available via the right-click context menu.

What is VLC Media Player?

With everything considered, it’s simple to see why VLC is widely considered the greatest media player for Windows and other operating systems. It’s quite useful, and the fact that it was built on a plugin architecture means that its capabilities may be expanded invisibly and without disrupting the user experience.

VLC is a fantastic media player that won’t slow down your computer because it utilizes so few system resources. To play media files, novice users can run VLC, while more sophisticated users can experiment with the program’s many options.

Yet, like most other software products, VLC Media Player occasionally freezes or slows down on Windows. Most of its problems are easy to resolve in a positive turn of events. The VLC program, available in the Microsoft Store, is another great option.

FAQ: Learn more about VLC Media Player

Is VLC safe to install?

VLC Media Player is a reliable program that provides access to all the features required to play media files. Several virus detection systems have flagged it as suspicious, but rest assured that it is completely safe to download and install. But to be safe, only get VLC from the official site.

Why is VLC so good?

VLC has been around for a long time and has a dedicated following. It has built-in support for all formats, codecs, and plugins. What’s more, its creators are staunch supporters of open-source software. VLC is managed by a non-profit group that doesn’t even bundle adware in its setup file or interface.

What is the best free media player?

There is no better free media player for Windows than VLC. If you’d rather investigate other options, Kodi, KMPlayer, Media Player Classic, GOM Player, and MediaMonkey are all worth a look.

VLC doesn’t sound right with headphones plugged in

Users have complained that VLC doesn’t sound right with headphones plugged in. If you follow these instructions, you will be able to fix the issue:

You can verify the integrity of the headphone jack by testing the connection.

In the event that you are having issues with your input port, you can easily change to a different port.