So far, you have learned how to change the icons of the desktop icons. This next section will show you how you can change the default icon that is displayed for any file type on your computer. Changing the icons is actually very easy; the most difficult part of the process is trying to figure out what icon to use. Additionally, keep in mind that you can use any of the new high resolution icons that you can download from the sites mentioned in the
Changing the Desktop Icons section in Chapter 3.
To get started changing your icons, you are going to want to use the Folder Options feature you used in the last section. Follow these steps to begin:
1. Open up Folder Options again by clicking My Computer. Then when it launches, click the Tools menu bar entry and select Folder Options.
2. Inside Folder Options, click the File Types tab to reveal the list of all of the different file extensions on your computer.
3. Browse through the list and select the extension for which you want to change the icon.
4. Once you have the entry selected, click the Advanced button.
5. On the Edit File Type screen, click the Change Icon button.
6. The Change Icon screen will be displayed. Here, you will be shown various system icons from which you can choose. If you do not find any that you like, just click the Browse button and select an icon that you downloaded on your computer.
7. Once you find the perfect icon, click OK to select the new icon.
8. Then click OK once more to save your changes. You don’t have to reboot after you make your changes, because you will see your changes immediately after you click OK to save them.
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Every time you click a file,Windows looks up what the default program to open for the file is from the registry. Then,Windows loads that application and tells the app what file to open up. This is something that we encounter almost all the time when we are using our computer. Often, when you install many programs on your computer, programs start to compete over which is going to be the default program to open up a file.
This commonly occurs when you install various music applications on your computer. I used Winamp to place CDs and MP3s on My Computer almost all the time. But when Apple released iTunes for Windows, I switched to that right away because of the cool library. Once I installed iTunes on My Computer, it took over all of my music files.Whenever I would insert a CD into my drive, iTunes would automatically load and start playing it.When I would click a MP3 file on my hard drive, the same would occur. What happened to My Computer when I installed iTunes is not always a bad thing. However, there are situations when I wanted to use Winamp to play my MP3 files. One big reason for this is that when I click an MP3 file and it plays in iTunes, it is automatically added to my library.When I am sorting through my collection of songs that I ripped from my old CDs, I don’t always want to add all of the songs to my library in iTunes because there are usually just two or three clicks on a 14-track CD. One easy solution to this problem is to change the file association back to Winamp so that when I click a file, it will be played in Winamp. Then if I like it, I can always add it to my library later within iTunes.
These next two sections will show you how to customize the default launch application for all of the different file types on your computer, as well as how your file types look.
Changing the default launch app
The information that Explorer looks up to find which program should be used to launch specific file types is stored in the System Registry under the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT section. Using the Registry Editor, it is possible to browse to that key and then find the file type that you want to change and edit some keys, but there is a much easier way in Windows XP to accomplish the same task.
Hidden away in Folder Options within any Explorer window resides a useful utility to change the default application easily without having to worry about application IDs and file association structure. Just follow these steps to change any File Types default launch app:
1. Open up My Computer by clicking the desktop icon or on the icon in the Start panel.
2. When you have My Computer displayed on your screen, click the Tools menu bar item and select Folder Options.
3. Once the Folder Options window appears, click the File Types tab.
4. Navigate through the list of file extensions until you find the extension of the file for
which you want to change the default app. Because I want to change my MP3 player
default launch app, I am going to select the MP3 file extension.When you find the file
extension that you want to change, select it by clicking it.
5. Click the Change button once you have your extension selected. The Open With properties window will load, asking you what program to load it with. It will show a list of common programs that you can choose from, but you are not limited to just those programs. Click the Browse button to navigate to any executable file on your computer to specify exactly what program you want to use if it is not on the list.
6. Once you have the application selected that you want to use, just click the OK button to save your changes. You are now finished with changing the launch app.
Your changes to file launch apps are activated immediately after you click OK to save your changes. Now you will no longer have to worry about applications taking control of your files.
