How to Set Default Programs in Windows Vista

One thing people take for granted in a computer is the fact that everything opens the way they want it to. If you click on a picture, it automatically opens in your favorite photo editing software, or your favorite photo viewer. When you click on an email link it automatically opens your favorite email client, and when you get a document… it automatically opens in the correct program. But, what happens when it doesn’t open in the correct program?? The easy way to fix this is to change the default program. Changing default programs is fairly simple.

Click the Windows icon, open “Control Panel”, and make sure you are set on “Control Panel Home.”

Select “Programs”

Select “Default Programs”

Select “Set your Default Programs” and a list of programs will load. Be patient, this could take a bit.

Find the program you want to set as a default, for example.. using Winamp instead of Windows Media Player. Select either “Set this program as default” which makes the program automatically open any file it can, or you can manually choose filetypes by selecting “Choose defaults for this program”

Thats basically all there is to it, through this method you can make everything open the way you want it.

Accidentally change something you didn’t want changed? Simply go back into Default Programs and find the program you changed. From there you can again either make it complete default or you can set your own rules for it.

This feature comes in very handy when you have many programs for the same filetype. It can be very useful to automatically make certain image types open in an image editing program, while keeping certain files set to open just to look at.