Change file type association for a certain extension

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Change file type association for a certain extension

3 comments. Current rating: 5 stars

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Question:

I need to edit HTML files on my hard disk for a while now and want to open each of them with Notepad instead of FrontPage. So what I want to change is how Windows opens HTML documents when I double click on them. I don't want to have to right click on each of those documents, select 'Open With...' and then choose notepad. Is there a quick way to change the association?

Answer:

You could rename all your files from *.html to *.txt - difficult if you have tons of subdirectories. Or maybe something else keeps you from it (e.g. you may want to test the HTML files and they are linked across each other).

The solution is a Windows command line tool called assoc.

The box below shows what you can do in your case.

# at the command line prompt, enter these commands

C:\Temp>assoc .html
.html=htmlfile

C:\Temp>assoc .txt
.txt=txtfile

# now change the association
C:\Temp>assoc .html=txtfile
.html=txtfile

# now do your work

# undo the change
C:\Temp>assoc .html=htmlfile
.html=htmlfile

# save all your associations to a config file:
C:\Temp>assoc >assoc_config.txt

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Comments:

2008-09-10, 12:19:48

anonymous from United States

There's no reason to bring the command-line into this. Besides, what if you want to open HTML files with Wordpad, or VIM, or Internet Explorer, or whatever? This solution doesn't address that.

The GUI way is:

1. Go to the file explorer (right-click the 'Start' button and select 'Explore' from the context menu).
2. Select Tools -> Folder Options.
3. Select the 'File Types' tab. This will bring up all known file-types in alphabetical order.
4. Scroll down to .HTM and .HTML.
5. Click on them (you'll modify .htm and .html separately, so one at a time), and hit the 'Change...' button.
6. Select Notepad as the default application for opening .html/.htm files.

The menu structure may be slightly different between versions of Windows, but 'Folder Options' has always been the

You'll probably be able to select notepad from a list. If not, you'll have to find it in the file structure. On Windows Server 2003, the Notepad is located at C:\Windows\system32\notepad.exe.

2008-12-20, 12:45:42

[hidden] from United States

Obviously, you have not used Vista: Vista has no Folder Options.

2009-03-25, 15:26:00

anonymous from United States

Great post, very helpful for files that don't allow you to Open With.

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