This post comes from my annoyance on one of my machines running Windows XP SP2 as its OS. By default, XP annoits MS Word for editing html pages. It used to worse before I guess with Frontpage launching them. But in any case, here is a quick and easy way to change file type assoications. The examples given are with respect to changing html to open with Macromedia Dreamweaver as the editor by default.

Background Information

“File Type” associations are the links between your documents and the applications that create them. For instance, when you double-click a Microsoft Word Document on your desktop, Windows knows to start Word and instruct it to open the document because of the Microsoft Word Document file type. Likewise, when you click a website link in an email message, Windows knows which browser to open (e.g., Firefox, Internet Explorer) because of the HTTP Protocol file type.

Microsoft Internet Explorer allows users to open a file they are browsing in an HTML editor by using the File > Edit with (Default Application) option. The application used for this action corresponds to the HTML Editor which is set in the Programs tab of the Windows Internet Options. Macromedia Dreamweaver is not automatically added to this list upon installation. This article helps you to fix that problem