Newbie with problems

B

Boomers

Registered
Hi to all. I'm relatively new to Mac having recently got a Mac osx.
I'm sort of feeling my way around in the dark as regards my new acquisition and I am finding plenty of problems. I downloaded stuffit expander last week as (I think) I needed it in order to get wmplayer and that seemed to work o.k. However, I have since tried to open some files that I had downloaded and I get the following message......'The file does not appear to be compressed or encoded. It is advised you obtain further information about this file about the contents of this file from the sender or provider of the file. it will help to know what program created the file and operating system(s) the file can be used on.' Very confusing indeed?
I also had problems downloading other software as the mac suggests applications to open them with but none of them worked. I managed to put wmp on to my desktop (don't ask me to repeat how I did as I'm not really sure how) but not before I linked the WMP to the dashboard. I must (in my confusion and frustration) have erronously chosen the dashboard as the application to open it with. So now every time WMP opens it automatically similtaneously opens the dashboard!! If however I open WMP player on the desktop first it then works for me. Hilarious stuff really but pretty frustrating nonetheless.
Now, dare I ask, firstly, does anyone have a clue what i am talking about and secondly, can anyone offer me any assistance?
 
Hi Boomers and welcome

forget about WMP Microsoft announced they stop supporting it and look for flip4mac instead (free from M$oft No it's not a joke ;-) to see wmv files in quicktime. AS for the "error message you get" it's got to do with some encoding that wm for Mac isn't able to read as M$oft only made it work for wintel based PC's.

to change the app that opens by default a file : right-click or cmd-i the icon of the file, in the info window look for "open with" then choose the app and possibly click change all. that should do the trick.

You'll find a lot of willing people who have a clue and are willing to give you assistance but I would suggest you try searching the forum for answers. I would also suggest to post a more specific title to your thread so to get more exposure and thus find a faster answer.

Hope this helps
Take Care
 
For reference, the only files you need Stuffit Expander to open are files that end with .bin, .hqx, and .sit. If you download something that ends with .dmg or .img (as many mac installers do), you only need to double-click it and it'll mount itself on your desktop as a "virtual disk".

Sometimes the answers are too obvious to see when you're new to the OS.
 
yes. it does everything Windows Media Player allowed you to do, and more. it appears that Windows Media Video is now a format i can encode into in quicktime pro, but i don't know why i'd want to.
 
well, I installed it and when I try to open a .wma with it, it says it doesn't recognize the file format...
 
Esquilinho said:
well, I installed it and when I try to open a .wma with it, it says it doesn't recognize the file format...
Click to expand...

I don't belive that it will allow you to play wma files with any sort of DRM on them.
 
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