Sunday, January 24, 2010

Open Unknown File Types


Open Unknown File Types
“I have a strange icon on my desktop. How do I open the file I just downloaded?” I am sure you heard something similar to this at least a few times, or maybe you asked yourselves about opening some file with a strange extension. Of course, you can easily use Google to search for details about the tools needed to open .ISO or .7Z files, for example, but why not have a program do that for you, and then some?
Most power users will laugh at this, but no matter how trivial may seem to be, using the OpenWith.org desktop tool can help you save a lot of your precious time, and since this is the most important asset one has, right after health and freedom… I didn’t pick this subject just to post another article here! When you need to open unknown file types, everything gets much easier if the research part is already done, there’s no need to argue about that.
After downloading the small setup package of this Windows tool, be sure to pay attention during the installation process, because you’ll also install some registry cleaning tool called PC Mighty Max if you’re just clicking Next without thinking about it too much! Sure, if you want to give it a try, there’s nothing bad in installing it, but I don’t like installers with such things checked by default, that’s all.

 Fully compatible with Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and Vista, the OpenWith.org desktop tool nicely integrates with Windows Explorer, so all you have to do after installing it is to right click the strange files and then choose the brand new option in the contextual menu, namely OpenWith.org – How do I open this?, of course.
The window that pops up, pictured a bit earlier, allows you to get more info about the file you want to open, taking you to the OpenWith.org page about it, but it doesn’t stop here, since you can easily choose which program to use to open the file, or install one of those available online and available in the list.
All this can prove to be pretty useful when multiple programs are associated with a certain file type, and it’s really priceless when you are facing a file type that’s a complete alien to your operating system and the programs already installed…
Other than the above, there’s not much to say about OpenWith.org and the desktop tool provided by it, since I am sure you got the idea already – if we push aside the little problem encountered during the setup procedure, this is another freeware treasure most Windows users who have to open unknown file types shouldn’t miss!

No comments:

Post a Comment