Vista - Correcting file associations in Vista

I have Windows Vista Home Basic and as I'm a computer novice I originally
bought several weighty bestselling tomes (Vista for...) and pc fix mags
thinking I'd be set up with all proper apps for running and troubleshooting
Vista. Turns out lots of these sources just plain wrong on Vista compatible
utilities and don't even mention appropriate utilities. E.g. my computer
manufacturer's software update program kept on showing file errors when I
would click "repair" in control panel programs. I then looked up the file
and with one accidental click made all files with one particular extension
open using notepad. (I noticed this has already happened to others in this
forum i.e. "my big mistake".) So search books, mag, web, nothing but one
utility charging good dollar for fix and some unreputable app web forum.
Finally, in this Vista forum, I find near the end a link to
http://winhelponline.com/articles/231/1/ for an Utility to unassociate file
types in Windows Vista. one, two, three, simple to use. Unbelievable. No
write ups about this essential fix that I've noticed in the media but so
basic and required. Then I realize the whole winhelponline.com site is
loaded with utilities for fixes on issues in Vista that I've been thinking
how to solve for the longest time. UNBELIEVABLE! and I spent hours
searching. So if you somehow need troubleshooting Vista files, set-up, and
come accross this post, save yourself the hours I spent searching for fixes,
go to winhelponline.com, honestly. It's run by a Microsoft MVP and I just
wish I could have come across it sooner, instead of looking up what all the
"known" apps and utilities advertise as providing. Hope someone at least
reads this and finds their Vista fix at winhelponline.com. This site really
should get more exposure at Microsoft.

Hi, Wally.

Oh, yes! MVP Ramesh's site is excellent! Highly recommended.

But did you try Vista's Help and Support file? Just click the Orb (also
known as the Start Button, since that's what was in Win95-WinXP). Then
click Help and Support. If you don't see what you need on the menu, just
type it into the Search box up above.

Searching for "file association" - with NO quotation marks - gets me 30
hits. The fist one is "Change the program that opens a type of file"; maybe
that's what you were looking for.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)

"Wally Cleaver" <WallyCleaver@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:C331A10A-FF3D-4AB0-B366-FC6E76983C23@xxxxxx

Hello R.C. White. Weirdest thing, my first Vista post, and my internet
service provider goes down for long time and knocks e-mail notifications off.
Anyway, thanks for advice. Did originally just do what you indeed
recommended. The problem of course is that for some files extensions, .dll,
as in a post some time back in this forum before Ramesh's utility came out
when there was no easy solution, is that for these files, the default is
"unknown application" and there is no way to restore that default through the
start -help- control panel. I wish it were that easy. The problem for
computer novices is that with one wayward click on Vista that you do not even
notice (i.e. "please make all files on the system open in this program"), in
trying to figure out in notepad exactly what is wrong, you can make changes
throughout system (should have "opened with"). Seems this is a big
difference with my friends who have XPs. They somehow end up with a corrupt
activex in download program files, one right-click, delete, gone. In Vista
I've had a corrupt flash active -x in my download program files since the
second day I bought this computer and cannot get rid of it (used Flash
uninstaller, disk cleanup). In XP right-click gone. I'll work on this and
can see the logic behind it in Vista (reg. key holding it back). Any way, my
second post and thanks for reply. P.S. speaking of Ramesh's site and
Windows Help, that guy's got a utility on there to fix the reg. if the script
on your Windows Help screen is goofed. I had exactly this problem. Ran it.
All Clear. 2 utilities for Ramesh! And thank you R.C.

"R. C. White" wrote:

Hi, Wally.

That "file association" procedure in Vista must seem wonderfully clever and
effective to the team who wrote it. But it seems much less intuitive than
the way we did it in WinXP. And it is SO hard for an XP veteran to discover
how to do it in Vista! :>(

Let us know how you did it - when you finally get it squared away. In
newsgroups, we all learn from each other, you know. We are the newbie one
day, the teacher the next day. ;<)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)

"Wally Cleaver" <WallyCleaver@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:19D0D0A2-E66D-4933-B301-297148C6D589@xxxxxx

Hi R.C., thanks for reply. You're right. I think I read somewhere that the
team at Microsoft responsible for this on Vista figured that when it came to
these type of files the standard user wouldn't bother looking into them.
Probably true, but the problem of course with a new system is that all of the
sudden tons of apps that work perfectly fine in XP have complications
adjusting to Vista. So iTunes needs vb script registration to run and a new
comp. user like me all the sudden has to use a command prompt in Vista on the
second day. Or my HP software update program keeps on saying 6 .dll errors
in control panel and the recommendation from HP rep. is recover factory
standards because maybe improperly configured with Vista. Well if had comp.
for awhile, do you really want to do this with bunch of new stuff on it? So
inevitably curious George like me tries to figure out what's wrong and one
click, mistake. I think for standard video, music, word, files the operating
system should keep the option to make all these files "open with this
application", because user can always change. But this option should not be
available for executable files, dlls, or other system files necessarily (i.e.
make all programs open with this) because run into problems. (I noticed
someone else in this forum mistakenly made all exe. files run with an
entirely inappropriate program by virtue of one click). I don't know. Guess
sometimes you need to be protected from yourself. Don't know. Anyway,
thanks for recommendation, and I'll post a new thread with two other problems
I'm working on tomorrow because, as you said, this is how we all learn,
especially newbies like me. Thanks for feedback. Wally,

"R. C. White" wrote: