I just installed 2.0.2 over top of 1.2.6 (that is, I didn’t uninstall 1.2.6 first, and used the same install location - I don’t know if this is relevant, but it seems worth mentioning), and now it does a VST scan with every startup; my understanding is that this is supposed to be a one-time thing unless I specifically ask for a rescan. This is not terribly inconvenient (I don’t have a lot of VSTs), but it is a bit annoying. How do I get it to stop?
Do any VST effects show in the Effect menu?
If you have the “VST bridge” plug-in, you should remove it.
And how do I do that?
The exact opposite of installing it. Go to the Audacity plug-ins folder and delete it.
Of course you only need to do that if you previously installed VST bridge.
Do you use VST effects? If so, which ones? Do they show up in Audacity?
I presume I did originally; I didn’t know very well at the time what I was going to be doing with Audacity (and to a large extent I’m still a fish out of water with this), so I probably wanted to be ready for anything.
Apparently not - the only plugins I have installed are the ones distributed on the Audacity website, but after reviewing the site again, I realize I got the terminology wrong and these plugins aren’t actually “VSTs”.
But to get back to the original problem, I tried removing Audacity completely, first running the uninstall and then trashing what was left of the install folder before reinstalling, yet I still find that Audacity is scanning for plugins before every run.
Reinstalling Audacity will not change anything unless you also reset the preferences, but this is not your problem, so on to fixing the problem.
Audacity will scan for VSTs each time until either:
- One or more VST effect is found.
- You tell Audacity not to bother looking for VSTs.
The easiest option for you is (2).
Go to “Edit menu > Preferences > Effects” and de-select all of the VST options.
Close Audacity and restart.
I thought that’s what I did by keeping the “Rescan VST effects next time Audacity is started” option unchecked. 
Anyway, unchecking the other VST options stopped it, but I’ve also noticed, I used to get “Open with | Audacity” as an option when I would right-click on an MP3 file, but now I don’t - and even using the “Browse…” option to select a different program won’t let me select Audacity in any way that’s useful. Any idea what’s up with that?
Yes, it’s a bug/limitation in Windows.
Setting up a file association writes information into the Windows Registry, but it can only handle one application with any specific name. If you set up an association for Audacity 1.3.x, then that will still exist in the Windows Registry and will prevent you from setting up an association with Audacity 2.x because the name of both programs is “audacity.exe”.
See here for how to solve this issue (it’s the same for all versions of Windows) Making Audacity the "open with" default under WIN-8 - #2 by Gale_Andrews
Since I happened to notice this old topic I’ll update it… .
From 2.0.4 onwards, Audacity doesn’t go on scanning each time for new VST’s if it doesn’t find any VST effects.
What happens (as a new user of 2.0.4 or later) is that Audacity will show an “Install VST Effects” dialogue listing the VST effects it has found (if any), plus (unfortunately) other DLL files as well which are not VST’s. So this would include two LADSPA plug-ins shipped with Audacity and the LADSPA set you downloaded.
But after that - if there are no VST’s detected and as long as you click OK in the dialogue, then Audacity will not ask again about VST’s unless you ask for a VST rescan in the Effects Preferences.
The process is detailed here: Audacity Manual .
Gale