Associate File Types to Specific Programs in Windows 7

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Video: Associate File Types to Specific Programs in Windows 7

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Hi, welcome to VisiHow. This is a tutorial on how to associate file types to specific programs on Windows 7 computers.

1. 1
   To start, we will click on the Start menu button on the lower-left corner of the screen

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2. 2
   Click on the 'Default Programs' button

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   Once you click it, a window will open.

   

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3. 3
   Click on 'Associate a file type or protocol with a program'

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   This will open a new section and take a moment to load.

   

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4. 4
   We will now have a list of file types that are known to Windows or that your computer has encountered

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   As we can see, the list is very long. In this example, we are going to click on the '.ZIP' file extension.

   

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5. 5
   Click on the 'Change program' button

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6. 6
   In this example, we have selected WinRAR archiver and it is in the list of recommended programs

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   If we want to use another program, we can click on the small arrow button by the line that says 'Other programs'. This will make a new list of programs available to you, but not all the programs can open the file.

   

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7. 7
   If the program that you need to open the files with is not in this list, you can add them manually

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   To do this, we will click on the 'Browse' button.

   

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8. 8
   Now, go to the program executable file location

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   In this example, we are going to use WinRAR again. Our WinRAR program is on disk C. Click on 'Computer'.

   

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9. 9
   Double click on 'Local Disk (C:)'

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10. 10
    Double click on 'Program Files (X86)'

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11. 11
    Scroll down to the WinRAR folder and double click it

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12. 12
    Here we can find the executable (.EXE) file titled WinRAR.exe

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    Select it and click 'Open'.

    

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13. 13
    Now the new program will be added to our list

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    To highlight the program, click it once, and click on 'OK'.

    

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14. 14
    Now, all of the '.ZIP' files will be opened in 'WinRAR'

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    We can now close this window.

    

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15. 15
    That concludes our tutorial on how to associate file types to specific programs on Windows 7 computers

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    If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the section below. Thank you for using VisiHow.

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If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.

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