file associations

I am experiencing a change in the way my PC works. If I do Start>Computer and then click on, say, my C: drive (but it happens for all drives) I get that darned message "The file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action....etc". If I right click and choose "open", then I get the list of subfiles as expected if I had just clicked on C:. Clicking on any of these subfiles gives the same error message, but rightclick>open works again.

In summary, I cannot open files by clicking on them, but right clicking and choosing "open" does the job.

Something has happened, but I cannot find a solution particularly since I am not sure what is the extension of a file such as C:

Any help greatly appreciated! (this is on my Windows 7 32-bit machine)

Quelle

Hello and welcome,

Try this - Manage - Fix "File does not have a program associated"

If your facing problems with files also, try this also - Default File Type Associations - Restore

Hello,
what browser you used to download? You may have accidentally clicked Open instead of Save and so the prompt to add something to the registry.
If you've not added the registry entries yet, re-download and double-click and click yes when prompted. Log off and log on. See if its solved.

Hello Quelle,

Downloading and merging the lnk (LNK) option in the tutorial below will restore the default HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile entry back for you.

Default File Type Associations - Restore

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hello,

When you download the .reg file, right click it and select properties and click 'Unblock' if its there. Apply>OK.

Now, try to merge it to the registry again.

Are you using a admin account or an standard account?

Yes, a re-install will resolve all these issues.
Here's a tutorial for it- SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation
By the way, didn't above methods work?

Quelle said:

Many thanks Ezio and Brink, although quite a daunting list of things to do now the working week is upon me. I'll come back to it in a few days. Meanwhile, would it all clear up if I reinstalled Windows 7?

Best wishes and thanks again

Quelle

You're welcome Quelle.

Yes, a clean install of Windows 7 would fix it, but you might give the above a try first to see if may be able to fix it for you without having to through the long time to reinstall everything.