| Windows File Associations | |
The following article assumes a basic knowledge of files and how they interact with the operating system. You may wish to read the article Windows Files and Folders prior to continuing.
The Windows operating system recognizes file types and associates them with programs based on their file extension. For example, Windows might recognize filename.htm as being associated with Internet Explorer. Thus, when a user opens filename.htm, Windows will first open Internet Explorer that will then take over opening the file. When Windows is first installed, certain file type associations are automatically assigned, i.e. the default handler for .TXT files is the Notepad program executable, Notepad.exe.
When new programs are installed to the system, they will often add new file types associated with that program or even change previous file type associations to be handled by the new program. As an example, Windows Media Player (WMP) is the default handler for .MP3 files. Put another way, .MP3 are WMP data files, i.e. WMP is the program and .MP3 is the data it ‘reads’. However, if Winamp is installed, it will prompt during the installation to change the default handler from WMP to Winamp. If allowed, this will cause any .MP3 files (or any others it may have re-registered) to be opened by Winamp in the future, instead of WMP.
Viruses can and do exploit file exploits and their associations. Thus, it is important that file extension viewing is enabled and that you are aware of which extensions are associated with which programs. Before proceeding further, ensure file extension viewing is enabled on your system. Visit the Executable File Extension center for details.
To view a file association:
As seen in the example above, the file association for questions.txt is Notepad. By clicking the Change button, a list of programs will be presented.
Depending on the operating system, you may have a list of “Recommended Programs” at the top of the dialog. This signifies programs the operating system has already determined are capable of opening that particular file type. Programs listed under ‘Other Programs’ are simply a listing of all programs found on the system and may or may not be compatible with the file type at hand.
Again using the questions.txt file as an example, we can see from the above dialog box that the Windows operating system has already determined that Internet Explorer, Microsoft Excel for Windows, Notepad, and WordPad are all capable of opening .TXT files.
