My laptop's folders open in Windows Media Player.

I'll start by saying this is probably the wrong place, wrong time, etc. But I've been searching everywhere on the internet, using every keyword I can find, but there's only so many results I can sit and push through.

Anyway, when I open a folder that has any sort of media in it, it opens directly to Windows Media Player. I don't know why. I haven't changed any settings to allow it to do that, I haven't noticed anything to check to get it to. But it does. 

When I right click, it goes

'Add to Windows Media Player list'
then
' Play with Windows Media Player'
then
'Take Ownership' (was a batch file I used in the past, not the problem)
and then finally, below those, is 'open'.

This is a tiring and annoying glitch in my system. My first instinct is to double left click on a folder to open it. Not right click and move my mouse down until I see 'open'.
Any help whether this is the correct place or not would be greatly appreciated. 

Oh: Right, probably good to mention. Windows 7 64 bit home premium. Inspiron 15R if that matters.
Edit#2: Resetting the folder optimization to 'general items' allows me to open with left clicks again, although if anyone has any actual fixes for the long run I'd like to hear them. It's a pain to reset all my files to open with their proper things.