Changing and Editing File Associations in Windows Millennium Edition (262808)

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NOTE: There is no Folder Options command when you click Start, and then point to Settings as in earlier versions of Windows. This item has been moved to Control Panel in Windows Me.

To Change a File Association

1. Right-click on the icon of the file you want to open, and then click Open With.
2. If there is only one program associated with this filetype, Open With is displayed and you can skip to step 3. If there is more than one program associated with this filetype, Open With expand to give you a choice of programs to open this file in. There is also the Choose Program option in the expanded menu, click Choose Program to open Open With.
3. In Open With you can select a program to open the current file. Select the Always use this program to open these files option to make this program the default to open when you double-click this type of file in the future. If you do not want to make this the default program that opens, leave the option empty.
4. Click OK and the file opens in the program you chose.

To Edit a File Association

1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click the View All Control Panel Options link, if present.
3. Double-click Folder Options.
4. Click the File Types tab.
5. Click the file type whose association you want to change, and then click Advanced.
6. Click the action you want to edit, and then click Edit.
7. Edit the file association as necessary, and then click OK.

To Restore Default File Associations

1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click the View All Control Panel Options link, if present.
3. Double-click Folder Options.
4. Click the File Types tab.
5. Click the file type whose association you want to restore, and then click Restore.
   
   NOTE: This option is only available if the default value has been changed.

When a file association is changed, the original association is stored in the registry to provide the ability to undo the change. If this has happened, the file information on the File Types tab in the Folder Options tool includes a Restore option in place of the Advanced option. Only the initial file association can be restored. This means that if a file association is changed three times, the Restore option only restores the original file association.