File extensions are character attached to the end of a file name after a “.” period. The group of characters represents the file’s type. For example a.mp3 is a music file and a .mpeg is a movie file. This is how windows identifies what program to use when you open a file. There are thousands of extensions in use today and millions of programs to run those extensions. Making sure the right program opens with the correct file can be easier to manage then you think.
To see extensions on the end of your files, it may need to be enabled. To do this, open a window, like My Documents, click “Tools” and open “Folder Options…”. Click the “View” tab and un-checkmark “Hide extensions for known file types”. Click apply and you will see extensions on the end of your files.
Windows 7 has a few ways to ensure the correct program lunches when you open a file. The first place you want to look when you are configuring your file extensions is windows “Set Default Program” window. You can find this in the control panel or by typing “set default programs” in the start menu. In Set Default Programs you can set which program will take priority for which file type and computer task. For instance, if you have Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer on your computer, this is the page to set which program opens as your default web browser. When you click a program, you can choose to “Set this program as default” or you can “Choose defaults for this program”. The “Set this program as default” button, tells windows to use that program to open any files it supports. If you click “Choose defaults for this program”, you can see the file types it supports. For example, if you click “Windows Photo Viewer” and go to “Choose defaults for this program”, you will see options for .bmp, .gif, .jpeg and others. Here you can choose to just have .bmp open with Windows Photo Viewer. You can then have another image view open the other types of picture files, like .jpeg and .gif.
You can also change what program launches a file more directly. Right click the file you want to open and go to “open with…”. Windows may recommend a program to launch or you can choose to browse the program you want to open. After you have selected which program you would like to use, you have the option to always open that extension type. To do this, checkmark “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file”. If you do this, any file with the same extension will open with that application.
These days you may download files with extensions you have never seen before. There is no central management agency to control what extension can be used for a particular purpose. Therefore To find what program will work with an extension, you may want to do a checkup on Google. Also, many files you download from the web are compressed with seemingly strange extensions. You may be looking at a compression type. A great program to decompress files of all compression types, is 7zip. Not only can it decompress many file types, it can compress as well.
File extensions are used to define what application is used to open a file. The extensions may be hidden by default. Use the view folders menu to unhide extensions. Windows 7 has “Set Default Program” window to help you manage your extensions and what program uses them by default. You can launch a file with a particular application more directly by right clicking the file and choosing “open file with…”. If you do not know what program to use to open a file that has a strange extension, try looking it up on Google. You should be able to find useful information about that particular file type. Lastly many files you download from the internet are compressed. Try 7zip if you do not already have a program for compressing and decompressing.
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http://www.HonestGuyComputerRepair.com / Los Angeles
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This was awesome! I didn’t know my computer even had that feature!