Windows associates data files with applications so that the appropriate program launches automatically when the icon or name of the data file is clicked. For example, if a GIF image is associated with ...

Microsoft uses file associations to set default programs for opening different file types on all its operating systems. As a result, when you open a file, be it text, image, or document, on your ...

Jeff Werner is a software engineer and has been writing this column since 2007. Question: When I download any .pdf file it tries to open in word. I know I have some setting wrong. How do I change it?

Many times there will be odd names listed in the permissions field for files on their systems, and people have wondered about them and what they mean. Topher, an avid Mac user for the past 15 years, ...

However, if you are using Windows 10, do the following: When you click open a file, it will open the file with your OS default app that is associated with it. It could be a web link, video file, and ...

In Windows 11 or Windows 10, you can Configure, Export, Import File Associations and even set or change file associations and extensions using GUI, but there is no option provided to delete an ...

Jeff Werner is a software engineer and has been writing this column since 2007. Question: I’m getting the dreaded “Explorer.EXE, This file does not have an app associated with it for performing this ...

I should have put this in my book I just learned two Windows command line utilities that I never knew existed: assoc and ftype. Both will display or modify the file association list, and are ...

When you double-click on a file in Windows 8, Windows will automatically open that file using a program that has been associated with that file's extension. There may come a time, though, that you ...

In the Mac OS it is possible to change the default program the operating system will use to open a file when you double-click on it. After you have changed this file association, though, you may want ...

(1) The relationship of one file to another based on the data it contains. (2) An established relationship between a file and the application used to open it. There are default file associations ...