Make Office the default program for file types?

[Aaron219]

I had OpenOffice.org installed still when I installed Office 2003. Office
never took over or asked me to take over as the default program for .doc
files and anything else that it should open. I tried right clicking on a
..doc file and saying "open with..." and then choosing Word and it works but
the icon didn't change to indicate that. How do I change these settings for
ALL file types that Office should associate with.

 

[Paul Ballou]

Open Windows Explorer go to Tools | Folder Options | Click File Types Tab |
Locate extensions you want to change association then click change to Choose
program make sure the "Always used the select program to open this kind of
file" is checked

You can also go Control Panels | Folder Options.....
--
Paul Ballou
MVP Office
http://office.microsoft.com/home
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
http://www.ballousgiftshop.com/p1152b/

Life would be easier if we could view the source code

 

[Aaron219]

I know, i know i know. I know how to do that, it's the same as
right-clicking and choosing "open with..." as I originally stated. I'm
asking if there is an easier way to do it. A way to do it through Office,
for example, so that I am sure that ALLLLLLL (not just one) appropriate file
types are associated with Office. You know, those rare file types that you
rarely encounter that I inherently wouldn't know to associate with an Office
program because I don't even know what they are. When I used to open
OpenOffice.org (which is now uninstalled in an attempt to fix this problem)
it gave me the option as associate a whole looooong list of "document" type
files with OpenOffice.org. I want to do that whole looooong list with Office
now. Thanks for you help.

 

[Paul Ballou]

No Office does not directly offer you the option to associate files with
office programs.

--
Paul Ballou
MVP Office
http://office.microsoft.com/home
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
http://www.ballousgiftshop.com/p1152b/

Life would be easier if we could view the source code

 

[Aaron219]

Thats rediculous. Haven't previous versions of Office offered that? Oh
well. In that case I will do as you suggested, but I still have one
question. When I associate .doc files with Word it does not change the icon
to indicate that. It still shows the WordPad icon. How can I change that
too? Thanks.

 

[Beth Melton]

You might want to try re-registering the Office applications which
will also recreate the file associations. Go to Start/Run and run the
following commands:

winword /r
excel /regserver
powerpnt /regserver
msaccess /regserver

Note the space before the forward slash.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/