How to Set or Change File Associations in Windows Vista

by Updated April 26, 2009

Windows operating systems (such as Windows Vista), every file extention is associated with a default program.  When you open a file, the program that is associated to the file extension will open the file by default.  However, you can change or set the association of each extension to any program manually. To do this follow these steps:

  1. Open 'Control Panel' and then click on 'Programs'.  Note: if you use the Classic View of Control Panel, select 'Default Programs'.
  2. Under the Default Programs section, click on "Make a file type always open in a specific program" option. See: Figure 1.
  3. To change or set the default program, locate the file extension and select it, then click  on the 'Change program...' button located on the top right corner. See: Figure 2.
  4. In the pop-up box choose the program you want to use to open this file with and click OK.  Note: If you don't see the program that you'd like to use click on the 'Browse..." button and find the program's application file (typically it's a .exe file).  
  5. Once you change the program to use for a file type, you should now see the updated Current Default program in the Set Associations file type list.
  6. Click the Close button to exit the Set Asoociations window.

If you just need to change one particular file, so that file is opened by a different program you can simply use the following quick solution:

  1. Right-click on the file you want to change and select Properties.
  2. In the General tab, click on the Change... button.
  3. Now select the program you would like to use and click OK.

 

 

 


0
0

Add your comment

by Anonymous - Already have an account? Login now!
Your Name:

Comment:
Enter the text you see in the image below
What do you see?
Can't read the image? View a new one.
Your comment will appear after being approved.

Related Posts


The following is a step-by-step example of how you can easily import delimited text files into Microsoft Excel. You can use the Excel Text Import Wizard to quickly import files delimited by Tab, Semicolon, Comma (also known as Comma Separated Value (CSV) file format), Space or Other (you choose), or divided by fixed width columns.  more »

Finding Cookies in Windows Vista is a little trickier than you might think. Most cookies are found in the following folder location: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies\Low So you can just type that into the windows address bar...  more »

So here's a quick tip on how to fix the following SQL Server "SqlDateTime overflow" error. System.Data.SqlTypes.SqlTypeException SqlDateTime overflow. Must be between 1/1/1753 12:00:00 AM and 12/31/9999 11:59:59 PM. The reason that you are probably...  more »

To force long text lines to wrap in an HTML <pre> tag, you can use CSS code to wrap the text. The word-wrapping CSS code below should work to wrap long lines of text within the <pre> tag, in IE, Firefox and Safari... you may want to test the...  more »

Often times when using formula's in Excel, you want to keep just the text values that a formula outputs while deleting the actual formula from the cells. To keep a value in a cell while removing the formula that produced the value try the following: Type...  more »

A regular expression for validating a image url.  more »

SQL Server Reporting Services can be a pain in the arse to set up correctly for the first time. Even after you've got things running correctly, you can sometimes run into issues, which is exactly what happened to me recently. I had setup my local...  more »

Learn how to get the latest security updates and service packs for your Microsoft Windows computer.  more »

Have you ever deleted an old podcast episode in iTunes and then wanted to re-download it? To get deleted podcast episodes to show up again in iTunes you could just delete your subscription to the particular podcast, and then resubscribe to the podcast for...  more »

Here's how you can find the text of a particular TextBox witnin an ASP.NET GridView row and then Select and Copy the text to Clipboard with Javascript. First put the following javascript in the HTML of your page (either in HEAD of your html page or...  more »

Here's one way to setup your connection string for a SQL Server 2008 Express database for a live website using ASP.NET on Windows Server 2008. Open "Sql Server Configuration Manager" -> the click on "SQL Server Network Configuration" -> then click...  more »

Find out how-to take a snapshot of what’s on your computer screen and turn the screenshot into an image using graphic software. You'll learn how to take a screenshot of your entire computer screen or just a selected window.  more »