Manually restoring associated filenames

[GreenSmurf]

Dear forum, I never thought it would happen to be but...

 

Since the last time I used CCleaner on my Dell running XP, now none of my file extensions are associated with programs. Including .reg (so I can't use the generic backup) and .exe so I can't even type regedit.exe into the "run" list. I've figured out a few workarounds and have gotten CCleaner to restored all of the .reg files made in the past month. Still same problem.

 

I also may have deleted a key from CCleaner>>Tools>>StartUp>> I've turned on everything that's there, but if something's been deleted is there a good way to find out or get it back?

 

And, if you have any other ideas as to what I might have done to create this particular problem, what would be your best guess as to what I did and how to fix it?

 

I assure you, I'm usually (often? at least sometimes) not this dumb. Lesson learned--don't drink, get mad at your computer, and then try to take it out on it with CCleaner.

 

Thanks

[pwillener]

I wonder what caused this - I have never heard of such a thing before.

 

Anyway, the easiest to get all your functionality back is to use System Restore, and set it back to a date before the whole thing started.

 

I hope you do have a good system restore point!

[GreenSmurf]

I hope you do have a good system restore point!

 

Of course I do not... Would make it too easy. Not that it'll do be a lot of good now, but how do you set them in CCleaner?

 

Apparently I can manually restore associations, and they stay when I reboot the computer. Weird. Although I haven't figured out how to do it for executable files (e.g. *.exe). Oddly enough, this did happen to my parent's computer about 15 years ago too--for no apparent reason .bat files didn't run when you double clicked them on Win95.

[GreenSmurf]

Although I haven't figured out how to do it for executable files (e.g. *.exe).

 

Okay, I did figure it out, for anyone else who does something similar in the future. Although it definitely disassociated a lot more files than just the few I've figured out...

http://filext.com/faq/broken_exe_association.php

[hazelnut]

File association fixes are listed here

 

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/file_assoc.htm

 

and here

 

http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/105/1/File-association-fixes-for-Windows-Vista.html

[pwillener]

Very complicated instructions you all found! The easiest way to restore / reset a file association is with the ASSOC command.

 

For example, to restore the .exe file association you open a command prompt, then enter

assoc .exe=exefile

Very simple, and it doesn't need any manual fiddling with the registry.

[hazelnut]

The links I posted pwillener don't require anyone to 'fiddle' with the registry.

 

Sometimes doing a command prompt can be a very scary thing for some users too.

 

Anyway the main thing is GreenSmurf has got his association back