- Freely Manage File Associations
- Freedom of Association: Download It Here
Freedom of Association is supplied as a self-installing application. Run Install to put Freedom into the directory of your choice. The installer will add Freedom, its help file, and an uninstaller to your Start menu. Freedom runs under Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.
To use Freedom, you must have a basic understanding of how Windows file associations work. A file association lets you associate an extension, the portion of the filename that follows the rightmost period (for example, TXT), with a file type, a collection of properties that contains, at minimum, the open-with program (for example, Notepad for TXT files). The file type has an internal name by which Windows makes the actual association and a descriptive name that Windows uses for display. In the system registry, the extension is linked to the internal name and the internal name is linked to the descriptive name. For example, the extension .txt is typically linked to the internal name txtfile, and that internal name has the descriptive name Text Document.
Freedom's power can be used for good or evil, so the first thing you should do after installing it is to click on the tab labeled Advanced and then click the Backup button (see Figure 1 ). This creates a backup of all registered extensions and their file types, so if you make any mistakes, you can set things right again.
Next you'll want to take a close look at the extensions and file types registered on your system. Chances are very good you'll find some problems. Freedom enables you to fix them while retaining the ability to undo any changes you make.