Windows Default Programs

When you open a file in Windows Vista and also in older versions of Windows, the file usually has a default program associated with it, for example, .doc files would open with Microsoft Word if you have Office installed, .mp3 files would open with Windows Media Player or another media application if you have chosen to install an alternative music application, for example itunes. There are many file types and most of these are associated with a program, however a file type can not be associated with more than one program. 1 program on the other hand can be associated with many programs, for example Windows Media Player is associated with many music file extensions and playlists aswell as video files by default. Microsoft Office is also used to open many types of files so each individual program, e.g. Word, Excel, Powerpoint is associated with many types of files.

You do have control over what program is associated with what file type and this can be useful if you have more than one application to run the same file and wish to manually change the file associations so for example your .mp3 files can be run by another program automatically. Another use of changing or editing file associations is when you come accross files with no known file associations on your PC. There are many system files which have no file associations as default on your PC, these are usually left for the operating system to deal with and we would mainly reccomend advanced/experienced users to open them with various programs.

You can also choose associations based on the protocol, so all addresses on the internet starting with http:// - denoting a web address or HTML file would be opened by a particular program, Windows Internet Explorer 7 by default with Windows Vista. There are many other protocols out there such as FTP, IRC, etc.

To get started with changing or editing file associations or default programs and protocols:

1) click the orb button to open the start menu

2) click on Default Programs on the right pane

3) on the new window click Set your default programs

 

When you click on Set your default programs, you will see the windows go through an information collection stage that many take up to a minute to fully load up:

Once the window has loaded you should see the following window with a list of some programs on the left of the page:

Clicking on Internet Explorer shows you a description, with some options underneath, with the amount of defaults the program has:

Clicking on Choose deaults for this program brings you to the next window, where you can choose particular extensions to associate Internet Explorer with aswell as protocols to associate Internet Explorer with:

Associate a file type or protocol with a program

The next option on the Default programs window is to Associate a file type or protocol with a program, you will see a load up screen again, but once that finishes (a few seconds later) you will see the next screen containing a list of extensions with a description and a current default association, if any:

As you scroll down, you can see various types of file extensions, you can leave the settings as they are but if you require some files to be changed, you can select on a particular extension and click Change Program..:

Once you have chosen a file extension, the .jpeg file extension for example, click Change program... and you will see the following window with options to change associations, in this particular example, there already are 2 programs to choose from, with one of them, Windows Photo Gallery being the current default and the other choice being Paint which could could theoretically choose:

You can also click on browse if you want to select another application that may be installed but is not showing up on the Reccomended Programs or Other Programs list.

Autoplay Settings

With the autoplay settings window, you can choose particular events to occur when different types of media or devices are inserted into the PC. The first one on the list is an Audio CD and the settings that can be chosen for example are to

Play audio CD using Windows Media Player,

Rip music from CD using Windows,

Play audio Cd using windows Media Center

Open folder to view files using Windows Explorer

Take no action

Ask me every time

These particular options are fairly specific to the option of audio CD auto play options although alot of them will crop up in other option lists such as Enhanced audio CD, DVD Movie, Enhanced DVD Movie, Software and games, Pictures, Video files, Audio files. The screenshot above shows a list of the various media types and the settings corresponding to them. As you can see, default autoplay settings have not been chosen for the options in view as each one just says 'Choose a default'. To change this, just click on a particular drop-down menu and you can select an option. If you want Windows to ask you what option to use to open the media every time, you can click Aske me every time or always change the setting back to that. As you run different types of media you will get a window asking you what actions to take and can also set up these auto play options through that method.

This method is useful because you can predefine actions to take and not have to worry about windows popping up every time you insert new media as the actions will be already in the system. Also you can always come back to this window through the start menu or control panel to edit the settings.

Note: you can always reset all the settings on this window by clicking the Reset all Defaults button.

Below you can see a few more settings along with some of the latest formats: Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD:

 

Set Program Access and Computer Defaults

Setting up program access and computer defaults allows you to chose your default web browser, default e-mail program, default instant messaging program and default virtual machine for java. There are also options to show or hide icons from the desktop and start menu by checking or unchecking the boxes named, Enable access to this program. To view these options, click on the double arrow on the right of each option; Microsoft windows, Non-Microsoft or Custom. The custom option allows you to specify the default programs and access features.