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Monday, November 15, 2010
File Association Fixes for Windows 7
I had a problem a while back with the Windows 7 file association for .cmd and .bat files, after I had set my default text editor (PSPad) to open those files for editing, while working on scripts (batch files) to automate some tasks in Windows ... but that is another story. This worked great, but then I discovered that I could no longer actually RUN those files, rendering all my coding temporarily worthless until I could fix the problem. While attempting to fix this manually, and Googling for help on the Internet, I came across a treasure-trove of "File Association Fixes for Windows 7", at WinHelpOnline. They had "fixes" for both .cmd and .bat files, so I downloaded them, examined the code as a safety precaution, and when they looked OK, I backed up my Registry and applied them, and POOF - my problems were instantly and easily fixed! I didn't even need to Logout or Reboot, although that would be recommended to ensure success. I was so impressed that I downloaded and saved ALL of their fixes for off-site repairs.
The WinHelpOnline File Fixes include: AVI, ICO, REG, BAT, IMG, SCR, BMP, INF, TIF/TIFF, CHM, JPE/JPEG/JPG, TXT, CMD, JS, VBS, COM, LNK, WMA, EXE, MP3, WMV, GIF, MPE/MPEG/MPG, XML, HTM/HTML, MSC, and ZIP files.
A few weeks later, I got a call from an old friend asking if I knew how to repair the file associations in Windows 7 for .htm and .html files, which had somehow gotten messed up. I referred my friend to the WinHelpOnline website and recommended he do as I did, and download all the fixes. He later told me that the fixes worked great for him, and he saved them all.
Today, while looking on the SevenForums site at a different topic, "How to Remove and Restore the Default Windows 7 New Context Menu Items", I discovered another page with even more File Association Fixes for Windows 7: Default File Type Associations - Restore. I think these are essentially the same as the ones from WinHelpOnline, but the SevenForums page has an even larger list of extensions. I have not yet tried the SevenForums fixes, but I downloaded all of them also.
The SevenForums File Fixes include: aspx, asf, asx, AudioCD, avi, bat, bmp, cab, chm, cmd, com, cpp, cur, dat, Directory, dll, drive, dvr-ms, exe, folder, gif, gz, h, htm, html, m3u, mov, mp3, mp4, mpa, mpe, mpeg, mpg, MTS, msc, msi, msp, otf, pdf, png, psd, reg, rtf, scr, tar, tif, tiff, TS, ttf, TTS, txt, url, vbs, wma, wmv, wsf, xml, xps, and zip files.
In addition to several others not included in the WinHelpOnline fixes, I was especially glad to see the one for .url files, as that is one that is frequently broken on customer's computers.
I hope these links may help, should you find yourself in need of a "fix"!