Using VLC over LAN

Question

I don't want to stream a video. I just want to use Windows File Explorer, browse to my LOCAL Cloud on my LAN, double-click a video (say MP4), and watch the movie -- all from my Windows 8.1 Laptop. Currently, when I do that, VLC pop-up indicates that VLC cannot play the video. It then goes into "not responding" mode, and I have to close VLC with Task Manager. No log is created (after enabling logging and filename in preferences. If I copy that same video to my local drive, all works fine. Version is 2.2.4.

So how do I play video over LAN?

Answer 1

I found an answer to my own question. The solution is a wee bit of an inconvenience, but certainly not much more effort.

SOLUTION: Open VLC, then "Toolbar - Media - Open File". In that 'Open File' dialog, browse to the LAN location where the video is located, and open it. The file can be on a mapped drive, or not -- in which case, just browse Network until the file is found.

As soon as I discovered that, it was an 'ah-ah' moment. Years ago, while using MusicMatch Program, a similar Windows File Explorer error occurred. I could not access music via the "new and better" Windows 8 File Explorer. The solution there was to put the complete path into the playlists, instead of just a shortened path without a Drive:.

So it seems that with (at least) Windows 8 and above, the arguments passed from Windows Explorer to an application -- when double-clicking an object -- have changed. The older applications do not understand the new format, and therefore, cannot open the object properly. Leastwise that is my non-programmers reasoning.

In any event, I hope my little conversation can help others with similar problems. Chow.