

For example, installing Microsoft Office sets up the associations for Microsoft Office documents. Associations made when a program is installed.
#Set default programs for opening files windows#
txt files to the Windows utility “Notepad”. When you double click on a file ending with one of those extensions, Windows runs the corresponding program to open the file.įile associations generally come from three places:


Similarly “.doc” and “.docx” files might be associated with Microsoft Word, “.xls” and “.xlsx” files with Microsoft Excel, “.txt” files with Notepad, and so on. pdf” files are associated with “Adobe Reader”. What we call a “file association” is nothing more than relating a file extension – the characters of a file name after the last period in its name – to a program.įor example, Windows might be set up such that after Adobe Reader has been installed, “. I’m going to show you what is perhaps the simplest, albeit not the most obvious, way to change the default program. There are many ways to re-create the association.
#Set default programs for opening files install#
Unfortunately that “file association”, as it’s called, is not only easy to overlook at install time, it’s also easy to break. That means when you installed whatever program it is you’re talking about, it should have set itself up (or offered) to be the default picture viewer, making it the program that displays a photo when you double click on one. Most programs set themselves up to be the default handler for the types of files they support when they are installed.
