Windows 101: Default Programs in Windows 7

Lots of Windows 7 end users  / consumers might not know what the Default Programs do in their system.  Default Programs can be found in the Start menu in your Windows 7 but have you actually tried to click or open it? A a default program is the application or program that your Windows will use to open a particular type of file such as music, pictures, videos, documents and the likes.  A good example of this is that if you have more than one multimedia player installed in your system like Windows Media Player, Zune, or say Media Player Classic, using the Default Programs feature in Windows 7 you can actually set which of these players will open a music file or a video file.

Here’s how we can modify each installed programs to open a particular type of file. Click on Default Programs in your Start Menu and click on Set default programs on the next window that will appear.

Now here’s the list of programs installed in my system.  I got WMP, Zune, VLC, iTunes, Media Player Classic to play my multimedia files.  All of these programs can play music and videos but I can modify each one of them to play a particular audio file type say MP3, WMA, etc., and video files like AVI, MKV, MP4, 3gp, etc.

Now I’ll show you how to modify the Zune player to associate and play specific type of files.  Click on Zune in the list.  You will see in the right pane a total of defaults for Zune and the number of current file types associated in it.  In this case my Zune player has 3 out of 10 defaults. 

Now you have to options, either click Set this program as default to set Zune to open all the file types it can open or you may just select Choose defaults for this program to set which file types will be associated and be opened in Zune.  Since I have several multimedia players installed in my system I will set Zune to play a file which has .mp3 file extension since I kinda like the nice and clean look of Zune when I play my MP3 files.  The picture below shows that the .mp3 file extension was selected.  The other three file extension (.m4b, .mbr, and .zpl) is default to Zune so we can’t deselect it.  After selecting which file type will be associated to your program click save and your Windows 7 will apply it to your system.

Now I’ve shown you how to modify a program to associate to a particular file type.  Try to experiment on the other programs, say your web browsers or your picture viewers and editors.  Have fun exploring your Windows 7!   :)