When I right-clicked into an .exe file then chose Open with... and I select choose a program then I selected the wrong program. I checked the checkBox that has the label Always use the selected program to open this kind of file.  Now all of the .exe files have changed into the wrong program after I did this, so all .exe file opened with this program.  How do I revert the .exe file associations to do my regular work?
25833
After (hopefully) scrubbing viruses out of a Windows 7 installation (after deciding not to simply run over the laptop repeatedly with my car), I've got everything almost back to normal. The only lingering issue I have is that for my non-admin users, the ".exe" file extension doesn't work. That is, clicking on the various desktop application links results in a "How do you want to open this?" dialog.  I've been through the alleged registry fixing from "winhelponline" and that had absolutely no effect.  I've tried running "assoc" for the affected users, but it reports the .exe association to be "exefile" even though it persistently does not work.  Right-clicking on a desktop icon and then choosing "start" does successfully open an application, but that's clearly a terrible situation.  For my admin user, things seem to work fine.  What do I need to do to get things working?
39187
I just installed Visual Studio Code 1.28.1, but I'm unable to associate it with the .txt extension on Windows 10.  I'm well aware how to associate an extension with an application on Windows. I can right-click in Explorer, select, "Open As...", select the application, and make sure "Always open with this app" is checked. Or I can go in to the properties of a file in Explorer, look at "Opens with", and click on "Change". Or I can go to "Choose default apps by file type …", etc. The problem is that none of this is working with VS Code.  Currently my .txt files are associated with EmEditor. I change the association to Notepad. No problem. I change the association back to EmEditor. That works.  But if I select the blue "Visual Studio Code" option that appears in the list of applications, nothing changes. The old association remains.  I even tried ignoring the blue icon in the selection list, and manually browsed and selected %LocalAppData%\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe as the default editor. That doesn't work, either. Nor did manually selecting %LocalAppData%\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\bin\code.cmd.  In case you think this might be related to EmEditor, I tried to associate .tidyconfig files (which on my system are currently not associated with any editor at all) with VS Code. It did nothing.  What's going on? Associating VS Code with my text files should be the most basic of basic Windows integration. Why won't it work?  (I filed this as , but I had no responses. I'm filing it here in case the "bug" is some sort of user error.)
31650
Several months ago I saw someone using an application that showed him files on the computer being modified in real time.  Basically there was an application that wasn't working correctly, so he installed the program, ran the application, and saw all the various files that the application either read from or wrote to.  He found out the application was writing a large debugging file it shouldn't be, which ended up being the problem.  I don't remember the application or the name of the person who used it, but I believe it's a freeware application.  Does anyone know what this program might be?
708
So, I just built my PC today, and am only using Ubuntu until I get Windows installed (sorry, guys!) But when I go to click on any .exe file, nothing happens.  It just sits there.  No error message, nothing.  I've seen other people with similar problems, but they all get an error message.  But not me... Whats going on?  How do I fix this?  Help?
91967
I recently went to open an audio file, and wanted to open it in an editor instead of a player. I right-clicked it, hovered over 'Open With...' and was met with a very unsightly list.    I have seen a problem in the past where apps will have previous versions stuck in the /Applications folder with their version number appended, but that is not the case here. Despite the duplicity in this list, no app is duplicated in /Applications nor anywhere else I can find on my system.  What causes this list to become filled with duplicates, and how can I remove them and ensure only the latest (and functional) version is list?
112561
A friend of mine downloaded some malware from Facebook, and I'm curious to see what it does without infecting myself. I know that you can't really decompile an .exe, but can I at least view it in Assembly or attach a debugger?   Edit to say it is not a .NET executable, no CLI header.
90471
I want to open a certain file extension with a Windows 10 UWP (Microsoft Store) app. I right-click on the file in File Explorer, select Open With, then Chose another app and I get the menu below, which does not include the app I want. At this point, I can click Look for another app on this PC, but the app I need is an UWP one, which is not in the Program Files or Program Files (x86) folders, so I cannot just navigate to the path of the executable file. How can I associate my extension to the UWP app? (Nota that this is not a duplicate of the same question for non-UWP programs)
71798
I've been using the 64-bit version of Windows 7 since the CTP and have run into a few problems with applications that get installed in the C:\Program Files (x86) folder. What's the purpose of having 2 separate Program Files directories anyway?  Every program I've installed has gone into the C:\Program Files (x86) folder. It doesn't seem to matter if the app is 32 or 64 bit. Why don't 64-bit apps get placed in C:\Program Files?  Is there a way to change the default to be C:\Program Files instead? Would it mess anything up if I just put everything into C:\Program Files?   If indeed there is some benefit to having a separate folder for 64 bit apps, it seems like the more sensible default would have been to use C:\Program Files for x86 apps and create a new C:\Program Files (x64) folder for the new 64-bit apps. This would help maintain backwards compatibility. I work as a software developer and some of my projects contain path references to libraries under C:\Program Files. Now those references are broken on the Windows 7 machine that has placed them in C:\Program Files (x86). I even tried to change the target location in the installer to be C:\Program Files, but that was ignored and the app went into C:\Program Files (x86) anyway.  This is very frustrating because I need to share source code between 32 and 64 bit machines and I don't want to have to mess with some configuration file that sets the path to these libraries differently on different machines.  Edit regarding environment variables: (Using only default English values of variables for simplicity.) On a 64-bit machine %ProgramFiles% will be C:\Program Files while the brand new variable %ProgramFiles(x86)% will be C:\Program Files (x86). So, if you have a 32-bit program that needs to find the folder path that it would be installed under, it would need to check to see if it was running on a 32-bit or a 64-bit version of Windows in order to know which environment variable to use. Any 32-bit apps that were written without this consideration would need to be updated in order to work correctly on a 64-bit machine. So even using environment variables, the backwards compatibility is broken.  Also, %ProgramFiles(x86)% doesn't exist on 32-bit versions of Windows. If it did, then 32-bit apps could just always use that environment variable and wouldn't need any conditional logic based on which OS they're running on.
17432
On the Windows platform, most large applications come with their own installer which sets up folders under C:\Program Files, possibly some other places, and perhaps adding some registry keys, etc.  But there's still quite a few tools around that consist of just an .exe or maybe also a README and a .dll or two.  How should I install such tools? Directly in C:\Program Files? All in one subfolder under C:\Program Files? Somewhere under C:\Users\Me? Somewhere totally different?  Or maybe different approaches for the tools with just an .exe to those that also have other files, or maybe only the ones with .dlls need to be treated differenty ...  Is there any standard accepted way to do this? A "best practice"? If the answer depends on the Windows version, I'm using Windows 7.  In particular, what might strike people as the obvious answer seems to have a catch:  I had tried to manually create new subfolders under C:\Program Files. In fact I thought I had done so before, but Windows puts up a dialog Destination Folder Access Denied. This caused me to think twice rather than just blindly click Continue.      On the assumption that greater minds than mine have come up against this many times over the years I'd like to ask the community if some kind of "best practice" has come to be accepted.
1033
I have a program pinned to the taskbar. After I upgraded the program (I think) the icon broke. What I get now is what you see below; that ugly default application icon thing.    If I unpin it, I get the correct icon. If I then right-click on it, the icon breaks again. If I pin it again, still the broken icon. Unpin again and back to good icon. Very annoying. How can I fix this?
62085
In Windows, is there a log that records what programs were run/called?  While browsing the internet, viewing a static page with no ads, mouse clicks, keypresses, or miscellaneous plugins/addons/scripts running, I just saw a spontaneous CMD.exe console pop open and then immediately close in a flash, fast enough that I wasn't able to see anything in the window -- and with no apparent triggering on my part.  I'm wondering if there is some type of Windows log that shows what programs have been run/called/activated? I'd like to see what was happening behind the scenes when this console window flashed, and hopefully determine it wasn't something rogue.  For reference, I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.
65023
how to create a shortcut for a exe from a batch file.  i tried   call link.bat "c:\program Files\App1\program1.exe" "C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Desktop" "C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Start Menu\Programs" "Program1 shortcut"   but it did not worked.  link.bat can be found at
63282
The dialog box in question here is the one you get with the context menu option "open with other applications". Wine seems to have inserted more than a dozen or so entries for each application I install, which makes it a pain to find the correct application:     What can I do to remove the duplicates?     Update: Neither of the two solutions really work. The bug is interesting, but the symptoms does not match my problem (I'm not having problem with uninstalling applications, but rather the things that are inserted after installing them), and with the other one, all references to the Wine application are removed, which actually makes the problem worse (although it may be an acceptable solution if nothing else can be found). So this is still an open question; any takers?
94590
I thought .com is an ancient form for executable, leftover from early MS-DOS days? Why do they use that today in WinSCP? And why only for the CLI version?  I tried asking this in their chat room, but received not a single reply for days. As always.
11207
After installing Adobe PDF reader, it opens files with the .PDF file extension. Ones' default web browser opens .html files and notepad opens .txt files, etc.  Where exactly in the registry are these filetype - program associations stored in the registry?   In other words, how does Windows know with which software/program it must open a certain file(type)?
23837
My current preferred C++ environment is the free and largely excellent Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express edition. From time to time I have sent release .exe files to other people with pleasing results. However recently I made the disturbing discovery that the pleasing results were based on more luck that I would like. Attempting to run one of these programs on an old (2001 vintage, not scrupulously updated) XP box gave me nothing but a nasty "System cannot run x.exe" (or similar) message.  Some googling revealed that with this toolset, even specifying static linking results in a simple hello-world.exe actually relying on extra .dll files (msvcm80.dll etc.). An incredibly elaborate version scheming system (manifest files anyone?) then will not let the .exe run without exactly the right .dll versions. I don't want or need this stuff, I just want an old fashioned self contained .exe that does nothing but lowest common denominator Win32 operations and runs on any old win32 OS.  Does anyone know if its possible to do what I want to do with my existing toolset ?  Thank you.
40436
On Windows 7 I created a symbolic link to an executable using:  mklink Test.exe C:\Path\to\source.exe   But when I try to run it by double clicking on it, i get the "open with" dialog.  Running it from a command window works. The path is right.   Is there any way a symbolic link will be treated like the file it points to (e.g. executable or batch scripts)?