Finder file association

Raymond Chen talked about this problem. If a program is trying to set some registry keys, Explorer will detect it and the file association will be reset. If you want to troubleshoot this, keep calm and run Procmon ;.

You should be able to track which application is hijacking your file associations. Once you identified the bad application, the best way to solve this, is to use a more recent version, or contact your vendor. You could get the following notification starting Windows 10 when you choose an application as the default viewer instead using Microsoft Edge.

These notification windows are displayed only once if you're clicking on OK. It's because Microsoft Edge is detected as a new application. If a new app is installed and is registered to an existing file extension or protocol you will get this notification. If you want to get rid of these notifications, there is a group policy to hide these notifications:. This policy removes the end-user notification for new application associations.

These associations are based on file types e. You can find in the table below some group policies related to default file associations settings:. You should look at Adobe Reader documentation and launch the Adobe Reader 11 installation with the following command line:.

You must be a registered user to add a comment. If you've already registered, sign in. Otherwise, register and sign in. Products 72 Special Topics 41 Video Hub Most Active Hubs Microsoft Teams. Security, Compliance and Identity. There are two other avenues available should you not find an offered option. Either download a compatible application from the web or select the Look for an App in the Microsoft Store option, which brings you to the Microsoft Store.

If this happens to you, you have to decide which app will work with the file type you want to change. This simple change has successfully reset the default application for your targeted file type; now this program will consistently open when you select a certain type of file. If you find that you need to change back to the original application, you can use the steps above to get back to the default settings.

Alternatively, you can go to the Default Apps section of the Windows 10 Settings menu as we did before, scroll down, and then click on the Reset button located under the phrase Reset to the Microsoft Recommended Defaults. Difficulty Easy. Duration 10 minutes.

Application developers can use file associations to control how the Shell treats custom file types, or to associate an application with existing file types.

For example, when an application is installed, the application can check for the presence of existing file associations, and either create or override those file associations.

Users can control some aspects of file associations to customize how the Shell treats a file type either by using the Open With UI, or editing the registry. In the Windows Explorer window shown in the screen shot below, the Shell displays different icons for each file, based on the icon associated with the file type.

If the user double-clicks the file Sample Bitmap Image , the Shell launches Paint and uses it to open the file because on this system, Paint is associated with. People can control these actions using file associations.

Step 2: Now, you can empty them. If the system displays an error message when deleting some files, leave them. Windows services or some running software might be using them. From this post, you can know what is File Association Helper and how to remove it. Here are three useful solutions for you to remove it completely. I hope this post can help you a lot! Facebook Twitter Linkedin Reddit Summary : File Association Helper is a piece of free software that often appears out of nowhere in the Start menu of Windows computers.

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