Preventing the RealPlayer 10 From Taking Over Your Computer
by Jason Crowder
2/5/04

Note: This article pertains to the RealPlayer 10. An similar article, called Preventing the RealOne Player From Taking Over Your Computer pertaining to the older RealOne Player 9 is also available.

Since its inception, RealNetworks has been the dominant player in the streaming video market. Recent competition from Microsoft and Apple has caused RealNetworks to start resorting to not-very-user-friendly business practices, however. This has become quite apparent in their latest incarnation of the RealPlayer.

Although the RealPlayer promises to be the end-all media playback solution, you must put up with excessive advertisements and promotions for their premium “pay for” service as well as overly aggressive tactics to keep you from using other installed media players. This article will give you some tips to help keep these annoyances at bay and keep the RealPlayer from “taking over your computer.”

Finding the Free Player

Because Real heavily promotes their "Premium" player, they tend to make their free difficult to find. You can find the free player by selecting "Download RealPlayer" link from their main page. On the page following, don't select the "Download Now" buttons scattered all over the page. Find the "Download the Free RealPlayer" link in small text. It's usually located somewhere on the right side of the page.

Installation

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From the get go, the RealPlayer promises to take over your computer if you are not careful. Let’s take download process, for example. On the download web page, RealNetworks instructs you to click the “Yes” button on the security dialog to accept the “RealPlayer Installer”, but my advice to you is to click the “No” button. This RealPlayer Installer is actually “RealDownload”, a download manager, in disguise. Personally, I don’t like download managers because they often display advertisements, save your downloaded files in weird places, and are a pain to uninstall. Clicking the “No” button will cause the security dialog to disappear. At this point, you should click the “Restart Download ” link on the web page. This second time around, the actual installation file (an “.exe” file) can be saved to your computer’s hard drive. After the file has been saved to your hard drive, run the setup routine by double-clicking on the file.

Don’t lower your guard just yet, there are several other “gotchas” than can be avoided during this setup. Be sure to pay attention to the default options selected by the setup routine. Oftentimes choosing the default options will place icons and advertisements in various places and disable your other media players by automatically associating the RealPlayer with most media formats. Follow the dialog instructions and navigate to the “Select program location and desktop settings” dialog screen.

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On this screen, I like to uncheck all of the “Desktop Settings” checkboxes. Don’t worry, a shortcut to the RealPlayer will still be installed on your Start Menu under Programs-- the only place it should be placed, in my opinion.

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Another screen to pay careful attention to is the “Default Media Player” dialog. Because I don’t care to have the RealPlayer be anything other than a RealMedia player, I like to uncheck all of the checkboxes on this screen. If you’re considering leaving any of these checked, I recommend you click on the “Advanced...” button instead. This will give you very minute control over the file types that are associated with the RealPlayer and won’t catch you off guard at a later time.

A Warm Welcome… or Not

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After the installation routine has completed, you will be ushered through another series of dialogs asking you to install the Real Toolbar and register your software. If you're truly of the mindset to keep the RealPlayer from taking over your computer, don't install the Real Toolbar.

The Product Registration is a ploy to get you to turn over personal information and to sign up for their premium service. You can safely exit out of these dialogs by clicking the “Cancel” button. You’ll be warned that you should continue the “installation” because it has not been completed, but in truth, the installation process has already finished and you don’t need to turn over personal information to make your RealPlayer operate properly.

Fine Tuning Your Preferences

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Your RealPlayer is now almost annoyance free. Once inside the RealPlayer, go to the “Automatic Services” section of the Preferences dialog (on the Tools menu, select “Preferences…”). On this dialog, you'll want to "Configure the Message Center" to turn it off. If left on, you’ll probably get pop-up messages telling you of a “great new offer from RealNetworks” or other such advertisements/promotions when you least expect it (even when your RealPlayer is not running). Turn off the Message Center by selecting the "Configure the Message Center" button, and unchecking all of the checkboxes. Select the "OK" button to save your settings and then select the "Yes" button when the dialog pops up telling you that you really shouldn't turn off the Message Center.

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Extreme Measures

For the most part, the tips above will keep the RealPlayer taking over your computer. Occasionally, however, even after following all of measures above, the RealPlayer insists on displaying pop-up advertisements and promotions while the player is running. After some research, I’ve discovered that these pop-up messages seem to be tied to the file “realsched.exe” which is installed with RealOne. Furthermore, I’ve discovered that this file is not needed in order for the RealPlayer to function “properly.” Of course, RealNetworks would have you to believe that all of the pop-ups, promotions, automatic updates, etc. are necessary functionality.

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If you can live without the RealPlayer doing automatic things like looking for updates, new promotions, and advertisements, you can safely rename the “realsched.exe” file to something else to prevent it from being executed by the RealPlayer. In order to rename this file, you first must make sure that it’s not currently running. In the Windows Task Manager, search for realsched.exe and close it if it’s running. Now go to the “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB” folder on your hard drive and rename the file to something like “realsched.bak.” You probably shouldn’t delete this file because you may need it at a later date for some reason. Please note: renaming this file will prevent the RealPlayer from running automatic services. If you determine that your RealPlayer is not functioning as you expect after renaming this file, you should rename the file back to its original filename.

Closing Remarks

It's a shame that RealNetworks has resorted to advertising tactics that are so obnoxious. In the end, I believe that it will not help their business plan. In fact, it will probably turn many users to an alternative media player, such as Microsoft or Quicktime.