Set association

[ejohn]

Using Vista Home Premium with SP1. I cannot open a .dat file and cannot set
an association to open it because .dat is not listed in the Set Association
menu. How do I get .dat listed so that I can set an association to it?

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Do not set a file association for .dat, it is a generic information form
that is used by many different programs. If you associate it, another
program may have trouble using .dat files associated with it causing hangs
or errors.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Earle Horton]

Using Vista Home Premium with SP1. I cannot open a .dat file and cannot
set an association to open it because .dat is not listed in the Set
Association menu. How do I get .dat listed so that I can set an
association to it?

Right click, "Open with".

Cheers,

Earle

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Using Vista Home Premium with SP1. I cannot open a .dat file and cannot set
an association to open it because .dat is not listed in the Set Association
menu. How do I get .dat listed so that I can set an association to it?

A dat file is not a single standard, and the extension is used
differently by many different programs. Creating an association for it
is therefore not a good idea.

 

[Lukan]

Using Vista Home Premium with SP1. I cannot open a .dat file and cannot set

A dat file is not a single standard, and the extension is used
differently by many different programs. Creating an association for it
is therefore not a good idea.

It is if he knows what he's doing and uses only one type of .dat file.

Example - all his .dat files are txt based files that he wants to open
with notepad by default.

 

[ejohn]

When I right click on it, I only have the choice Open, not Open With. When
I click on open, I get the message: Do you want to open this file? when I
click on Open, I get the message: This file does not have a program
associated with it for performing this action. Create an association in the
Set Associations control panel.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

Spot on.

This is exactly why Vista doesn't do this for you. I have this conversation
internally every several years with ".dat" advocates. File extension
collisions are a bad thing. =(