Unable to change Default Program Extension
When I tried to change it back to Outlook under Properties of that file the change option was grayed out
So I tried to right-click on the file and clicked on “Open With” dialog box, because there you have a change box “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file”. But strangely that checkbox was grayed out, as well. When I select Outlook, it opens fine. But I was just unable to set it as the default option. So I went to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Default Programs\Set Associations and tried to change it there, but sadly I was again unable to. I was totally stumped because the UAC was turned off, the user is a Windows administrator – so there was no reason for the option to be disabled. That’s when I remembered that there is an option in the Windows registry, where you can change it. So I opened the registry and navigated to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts Here you have to find your extension under a key called “UserChoice”. What this registry key does, is if you change the Default file extension, Windows creates this key and adds the value there.
On the right-hand side you’ll see a string value “Progid” under that value you’ll see the current program that is associated with it. So I tried to change that value but it gave me an error: Cannot edit Progid.
Now I realized what was wrong! For some reason, that specific registry key doesn’t have permission to change the file extension, and that was the reason why those options were grayed out for me. So I took ownership of the parent key and inherited the permission.
Now I could delete the “UserChoice” key. Once I deleted it and I rebooted the system. And voilà – now I got this window!
Once I selected the correct program I made it as default and it stayed. Hope this becomes helpful for someone who runs into a similar problem. These links may also interest you:
