When you double-click a file on your computer, Windows may launch an application to run or display the file. Windows knows how to do this because it maintains a list of known file types and the names ...

BearPup sometimes wants to open a file in one program, and other times open it in another. He asked the Answer Line forum for an easy way to do this. Windows uses a file’s extension–the part of the ...

The default setting for Windows is to not display a file's extension, which is the last period in a file name followed by 2 or 3 letters. Therefore, when viewing files in Windows you would only see ...

You might encounter a situation where you may not be able to open any .exe files or shortcut link files, i.e., EXE or LNK files. You might instead get a “Open with” dialog box, or it may open the file ...

1How to view file name extensions for all files on a Mac 2How to view file name extensions for a individual file on a Mac The default setting for Mac OS is to not display a file's extension. For those ...

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 ...

We have seen how we can set or change File Associations & Extensions via the Control Panel Default Programs applet. Windows 11/10 also allows you to configure these File Associations via Settings. For ...

Back in the pre-Mac OS X and macOS days, Apple’s System 9 and earlier relied on hidden metadata to associate files with apps. File extensions, those bits of text that follow a period at the end of a ...