Default Programs Editor
An advanced Windows file association tweak utility
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Replaces the "File Types" dialog that went missing in Vista:
Missing in Vista!
Here is some sweet stuff you can do with it:
- Manually add extension and file type information
- Change a file type's description
- Change a file type's icon
- Change an extension's associated file type
- Add/Edit/Delete an extension's default association
- Add/Edit/Delete other entries on the file's context menu
- Preserve verb precedence hierarchy
- View shell extension entries on the context menu
- Remove 'Default Programs' association that Windows likes to make annoying to change
- Add/Edit/Delete your own autoplay handlers
- Change which autoplay options are available for users
- Disable that "Search web for unknown extension" dialog
- Single .exe utility, no installation
On top of all that, here are some bonus features:
- Make changes direct to the registry, or export them as .reg files for easy distribution
- Designed for Vista, with UAC support, so you can painlessly run as a standard user
- Also should work on XP (minus some parts best configured with TweakXP)
- Make changes to your user account, or the machine default, or both
How do I use it
Here are a couple how-to's to get a feel for it.
Contact me if you're having trouble and need something explained, or leave a comment on the blog.
Changes -- RSS
1.3- August 09, 2008
- Fixed a minor UI bug where not all references were updated when the "Rename ProgID to File Type" preference was changed.
- About/Help link now points to this program's own landing page instead of it's blog category.
- The information url comment in exported .reg files has been updated to this program's own page instead of it's blog category.
- The program now checks for updates automatically when it is launched. This can be disabled in Advanced Configuration.
- A couple of additional minor UI adjustments (including a misspelled word in the error dialog- whoops!).
- Added a dialog to enable the deletion of both an extensions and ProgID's.
- Fixed an rare bug that caused an immediate crash (both XP and Vista) based on information from online crash reports.
- Fixed a bug where extensions without ProgID's would have a blank Friendly Type Name instead of EXT File, which is what Windows Explorer shows.
- Program identification comment at the top of generated .reg files now includes the version number.
- Moved the "Include extensions without a ProgID" checkbox to the extensions filter options list.
1.2- July 27, 2008
- Fixed a critical bug that caused an immediate crash on Vista x64.
- Added automatic online error reporting (can be disabled in Advanced Configuration).
- Added a friendly error dialog when the program crashes, replacing the generic .Net one.
- A couple of minor UI adjustments.
1.1- July 14, 2008
- Now distributing as the exe and this changes file in a zip instead of just the exe.
- Put Context Menu and File Type properties group boxes into separate tabs.
- Replaced File Type column in the main extension list with Friendly Type Name.
- Autogenerated key names are now converted to lower case to fit with convention.
- A couple of additional minor UI adjustments.
- Url in the exported .reg comment was wrong.
- "Show shell extensions" checkbox moved to the Advanced Config tab (which means its state is persistent across sessions now).
- Searching for an extension in both the main extension list, and the File Type dialog now also transparently searches file type key names.
- Fixed a bug where showing verbs from shell extensions would cause a crash on XP.
- New File Types are now created in the Select File Type dialog.
- The Add Extension dialog has been reworked to be more intuitive.
1.0- July 12, 2008