"Open With" selection doesn't stick

[Stan Brown]

I spent a frustrating couple of minutes at work yesterday. We have
Win 7 Enterprise, with Excel 2010 and 2003 installed. For some
reason, every time I click on any .xlsm file, Excel 2003 opens.

So I selected such a file, Shift-Right-clicked, and selected Open
With. I used Browse to get to Excel 2010, ticked the "Always use the
selected program" box, and clicked OK. I then double-clicked the
file, and it opened in .. Excel 2003!

Okay, did I stupidly get into the Office11 folder (Excel 2003)
instead of the Office14 folder? So I went through the process again,
being very careful. And the result was the same.

Yes, I know there are third-party utilities to change file
associations, but does anyone have any idea why Open With... wouldn't
do it?

 

[SC Tom]

I spent a frustrating couple of minutes at work yesterday. We have
Win 7 Enterprise, with Excel 2010 and 2003 installed. For some
reason, every time I click on any .xlsm file, Excel 2003 opens.

So I selected such a file, Shift-Right-clicked, and selected Open
With. I used Browse to get to Excel 2010, ticked the "Always use the
selected program" box, and clicked OK. I then double-clicked the
file, and it opened in .. Excel 2003!

Okay, did I stupidly get into the Office11 folder (Excel 2003)
instead of the Office14 folder? So I went through the process again,
being very careful. And the result was the same.

Yes, I know there are third-party utilities to change file
associations, but does anyone have any idea why Open With... wouldn't
do it?

It's been too many years since I had this problem, but IIRC, you have to
remove the association from the file type first, then associate the program
you want to use. With Office products, I don't remember right off hand if
it's in the program itself (Excel options), or if it was a registry key or
two that had to be removed. Sorry, that's all I got right now. When I get
home later, I'll look into it more, if no one else has posted the solution.

 

[slate_leeper]

I spent a frustrating couple of minutes at work yesterday. We have
Win 7 Enterprise, with Excel 2010 and 2003 installed. For some
reason, every time I click on any .xlsm file, Excel 2003 opens.

So I selected such a file, Shift-Right-clicked, and selected Open
With. I used Browse to get to Excel 2010, ticked the "Always use the
selected program" box, and clicked OK. I then double-clicked the
file, and it opened in .. Excel 2003!

Okay, did I stupidly get into the Office11 folder (Excel 2003)
instead of the Office14 folder? So I went through the process again,
being very careful. And the result was the same.

Yes, I know there are third-party utilities to change file
associations, but does anyone have any idea why Open With... wouldn't
do it?

I have the same problem with Windows Media Movie files. If I click on
one, a box opens asking if I wish to open it with Irfanview, my
default program for this. There is a box for "always use this program
for this type of file," which is checked. Yet it asks again, every
time. Irfanview is set as the default viewer. All associated files are
directed to Irfanview, including the wmv files. Yet it always asks,
but only for this one file extension. Punishment for not using Windows
Media Player?

-dan z-







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[Wolf K]

I spent a frustrating couple of minutes at work yesterday. We have
Win 7 Enterprise, with Excel 2010 and 2003 installed. For some
reason, every time I click on any .xlsm file, Excel 2003 opens.

So I selected such a file, Shift-Right-clicked, and selected Open
With. I used Browse to get to Excel 2010, ticked the "Always use the
selected program" box, and clicked OK. I then double-clicked the
file, and it opened in .. Excel 2003!

Okay, did I stupidly get into the Office11 folder (Excel 2003)
instead of the Office14 folder? So I went through the process again,
being very careful. And the result was the same.

Yes, I know there are third-party utilities to change file
associations, but does anyone have any idea why Open With... wouldn't
do it?

Non-sticking preferences is a very old problem with Windows. I've found
that they can often be fixed by the following. Worth a try, the most you
lose a few minutes of your time.

a) first unset the preference(s). Eg, in this case, disassociate the
files from all the programs that you've used as defaults;
b) reboot, and reset preferences;
c) reboot.

If the settings are within a program, restart the program after
unsetting and again after resetting the preferences.

I infer that when this method works, restart/reboot forces a save of the
prefs file/registry, so the setting(s) are preserved.

Good luck.

 

[Stan Brown]

I spent a frustrating couple of minutes at work yesterday. We have
Win 7 Enterprise, with Excel 2010 and 2003 installed. For some
reason, every time I click on any .xlsm file, Excel 2003 opens.

So I selected such a file, Shift-Right-clicked, and selected Open
With. I used Browse to get to Excel 2010, ticked the "Always use the
selected program" box, and clicked OK. I then double-clicked the
file, and it opened in .. Excel 2003!

Okay, did I stupidly get into the Office11 folder (Excel 2003)
instead of the Office14 folder? So I went through the process again,
being very careful. And the result was the same.

Yes, I know there are third-party utilities to change file
associations, but does anyone have any idea why Open With... wouldn't
do it?

Thanks to those who replied. I'm a bit puzzled, though, by the
advice to dissociate .xls from Excel. Is there any way to do that
without editing the Registry or using a third-party tool such as
Nirsoft FileTypesMan? I'm not aware of any, though I'm open to the
possibility.

And if I'm going to use either of those methods, I might just go
ahead and change the preference at the same time.

That will get the job done, but I was wondering why Win 7 can't do
it. From the replies, the answer seems to be "it's a Windows bug."

 

[SC Tom]

Thanks to those who replied. I'm a bit puzzled, though, by the
advice to dissociate .xls from Excel. Is there any way to do that
without editing the Registry or using a third-party tool such as
Nirsoft FileTypesMan? I'm not aware of any, though I'm open to the
possibility.

And if I'm going to use either of those methods, I might just go
ahead and change the preference at the same time.

That will get the job done, but I was wondering why Win 7 can't do
it. From the replies, the answer seems to be "it's a Windows bug."

When I had the problem, we were still on WinXP (which was a lot easier to
work on extension problems). Since going to Win7 (my PC; I don't work any
more ), I find Nirsoft's File Types Manager to be invaluable. You can
try going through Control Panel > Default Programs > Associate a file type
or Protocol with a Specific Program, but I found that a lot of the Microsoft
programs make it nigh on to impossible to change (.xlsm being one of them).
No matter what I tried as an experiment, I could not change the default from
MS Office Excel 2007, but I only have the one version installed.