How to Change File Associations using Vista

How to Change File Associations in Windows Vista.

File associations are basically what program opens when you open a file.
For example, if you try to open a Microsoft Word Doc, the machine knows that ".doc" is the file extension and that it needs to use Microsoft Word to open it. Microsoft Word also now uses ".docx".
The "x" tells the system that it is a 2007 Office file. Likewise the changes have been added to other 2007 Office file like Powerpoint (now ".pptx") and Excel (now ".xlsx")

Other associations that may want to be changed, are music and video files. On a default system, Windows will use Window Media Player to open music and video files. If you use a system like iTunes to manage your music you need to change your music files (.mp3) to be associated with iTunes. Likewise if you prefer Quicktime, you need to change your video files (.mp4) to Quicktime.

Adobe PDF's are also used a alot. If you have both the PDF Reader and the full version of Acrobat, you may want to change the ".PDF" association to one or the other depending on how often you use PDF's. If you mostly just view them without making changes, then you'll want to change the association to the reader, so you don't have to wait for the whole Acrobat program to load each time you want to just take a quick look. Then if you need the full Acrobat program, then just right click the PDF and tell it to open with Acrobat.

Open your control Panel
"Start -> Control Panel"
Select "Default Programs"

Then select "Associate a file type or protocol with a program"

From this list you can select the extension and then select "Change Program" from the top right.