windows 8.1 - What broke .xml file association?

07
2014-07
  • Terry

    I did a clean install of Win 8.1 Pro along with several other development tools. I could get a list if needed, but somewhere early on, I installed Office 2013 Home and Student...and I installed VS 2013 after that at some point. I didn't check things as I was going, but when I am now finished. *.xml files are showing (and opening with) notepad icon. On my old machine (admittedly, a Win 7 machine) it has the proper 'xml document icon' and if you open it, it opens in a browser by default.

    (embarrassed) I think I recall chasing this problem down before 4 years ago and solving it, but I can't find any documentation and I'm not finding the solution again on the web. So I thought I'd ask here, so it would be 'documented' in SO if someone is able to help.

    So does anyone know how to fix my *.xml files so they are associated with proper settings? (note I did export my HKCR/xmlfile registry key from my Win7 (working) machine and applied it to the new Win8.1 machine, but it still didn't fix it :(

    Thanks in advance.

    • Answers
  • Stefan Surkamp

    I'm not sure if that is too easy, but you can set this under Settings > Search and Apps > Default

    (Source: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/choose-programs-windows-uses-default)

    edit: Maybe this topic is also of interest for you: How to recover my .xml default icon?

  • Jan Doggen

    I don't know what broke it, but you can see and repair the association with NirSoft's FileTypesMan.


    • Related Question

    Broke NetBeans file associations in Windows XP how do I get them back?
  • Serhiy

    I broke my file association in XP... Does anyone have any clue how to fix it? When I right click and select Open With... the application I want to use (NetBeans) to open the file is not on the list... and when I browse for it it won't let me select it (well it does but then won't add it to the list).

    The way I broke it is by installing 6.7 and then uninstalling 6.5.... since then my file associations have all been broken. I even tried uninstalling NetBeans and reinstalling it again... no luck...

    I even went as far as adding my own action called "OpenIt" to the file types I wanted... and that works... but only if the file/folders that contain in don't have any spaces... otherwise NetBeans throws a ".....does not exist, or is not a plain file". Thus nothing off the desktop can be opened...

    Does anyone know of how I can fix this problem? Thanks.


    • Related Answers
  • 8088

    I too had this same problem and could never figure out what was wrong - I think I've finally worked it out.

    When upgrading NetBeans (or reinstalling), not all of the entries in the Windows registry are updated. Look in your registry at:

    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\netbeans.exe\shell\open\command

    Is the path listed in the "Data" field inline with your currently installed version of NetBeans?

    Mine was different: it had the path to an older version (NetBeans 6.8). When I updated this value to use my most recent install (NetBeans 7.0), all was fixed.

    For good measure, I did a search of my registry for any additional "NetBeans 6.8" entries and found one other that I also updated - but I have no idea what it was for.

  • harrymc

    You could just install NetBeans 6.7 again.