Page 393 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Windows comes with several programs that can open text files with the

extension .txt—Notepad and WordPad, for example. There are also plenty
of programs that can open picture files with the extension .jpg. So how does
Windows decide which program to open when you double-click a .txt or
.jpg file?

Easy—it refers to its internal database of preferred default programs for
various file types. But at any time, you can reassign a particular file type
(file extension) to a different application. If you’ve just bought Photoshop,

for example, you might want it to open up your .jpg files, rather than the
Photos app.

This sort of surgery has always confused beginners. Yet it was important for

Microsoft to provide an easy way of reprogramming documents’ mother
programs; almost everyone ran into programs like RealPlayer that, once

installed, “stole” every file association it could. The masses needed a simple
way to switch documents back to their preferred programs.

Whether or not the three file-association mechanisms described next are
actually superior to the one old one from Windows versions of old—well,

you be the judge.

Method 1: Start with the document

Often, you’ll discover a misaligned file-type association the hard way. You

double-click a document and the wrong program opens it. For that reason,
Microsoft has added a new way of reprogramming a document—one that
starts right in File Explorer, with the document itself.

Right-click the icon of the file that needs a new parent program. From the
shortcut menu, choose “Open with.”

If you’re just trying to open this document into the new program this once,

you may be able to choose the new program’s name from the “Open with”
submenu (Figure 6-12). Windows doesn’t always offer this submenu,
however.