How To Set A Default App By File Type On Windows 10 1803
Every major Windows 10 update always does one thing; moves a few settings from the Control Panel to the Settings app. With Windows 10 1803, the Control Panel section that allowed users to set default apps by file types is gone. When you click that now deprecated option, you’re taken to the Settings app. When you click the button that allows you to select an app, you either have a few UWP apps to choose from, or you can go to the Microsoft store and download one from there. Here’s how you can get around the limitation and set a default app by file type on Windows 10 1803.
SPOILER ALERT: Scroll down and watch the video tutorial at the end of this article.
Default Apps By File Type
What you basically need is to get to a menu that lets you choose an app already installed on your system and set it as the default app. If the defaults weren’t already assigned when you installed the app there is a pretty simple way to do it.
You need to find the file type that you want to set the default for. If you already have it, that’s one step out of the way but if you don’t have one, there’s an easy work around to getting it.
Create a Notepad file, and change its extension to the one you want to associate a default app with.
Once you’ve created the file, right-click it and select the Open With option. The menu you see will be a familiar one. Scroll through the list of apps and at the bottom you will see a ‘Look for another app on this PC’ option and select the app you want to associate with it. Once you’re done, select the ‘Always use this app to open files’ option.
That’s about all it takes. You can delete the fake file that you created. Repeat this for all file types that you need to associate an app for. It’s a tedious way of doing things but that’s the only way there is. Microsoft seems to have made something that was simple a little more complicated and that’s not a surprise. It’s trying to simplify settings but the casualties keep piling on.
It doesn’t seem like Microsoft knows that the Control Panel doesn’t have to be killed off bit by bit. The Settings app can exist with it and offer users the easier interface they need to tweak their system. If everything from the Control Panel moves to the Settings app, it’s just a new app for users to learn their way around but without all the options the Control Panel had.
Thanks for your assistance. It isn’t that Microsh*t doesn’t know that they are taking away our ability to select any other applications but theirs. systematic stamping out of competition by a monopoly.