Associating an .exe file with an Application

By mistake I associated an or perhaps some .exe file(s) with Windows Word Reader and now every program tries to open with that Word Reader but fails. The fix seems to be to delete the User Choice registry by using a REG file, then download exefix-cu.reg, save it to desktop, right click on the REG file and choose Merge. The.REG file clears a particular key which is the one that for some unknown reason shouldn't exist for.exe files. My question is :- why doesn't it work to associate Word Reader with an .exe file? Every file must be opened by another (or the same in some cases, eg internet browser) file, so what's so bad with using Word Reader for this? I know it causes the trouble that I'm experiencing but could someone please explain why/where the mechanism fails.

An exe file is a compiled programme or app.. you can't just "open" it... word viewer is designed to open .doc (or similar) files...

What truman said. Not every file "must be opened" by another.

.exe files are executed by the operating system, if you've associated them with word reader then it's trying to open them for editing and can't as they contain none text characters... and if it did open them, they'd be in a text editor, not running as a program.

Truman and Cyclone, thanks for your clear and concise answers. They make perfect sense to me, and so does my need to sort this problem out at registry level. I know about exefix-cu.reg free download and now I understand why I'm going to be doing what I'm going to do. Thanks again.

Truman and Cyclone, thanks for your clear and concise answers. They make perfect sense to me, and so does my need to sort this problem out at registry level. I know about exefix-cu.reg free download and now I understand why I'm going to be doing what I'm going to do. Thanks again.

Before you muck about with the registry it may be an idea to back it up..just in case

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/322756/how-to-back-up-and-restore-the-registry-in-windows

Yes Truman, good idea. Thanks. I have another query for cyclone. When I use the fix sent to me recently I right click on the REG file and choose Merge. Then when I use Open With to associate .exe files with another application the settings are stored in the above registry key. There will be a value called Progit which contains the application's exe file name (Notepad.exe, iexplore.exe etc or a Programmatic Identifier such as txtfile, jpegfile, etc.) All this is what the suggested download said but I'm afraid I don't understand it. So in other words when I choose Merge what else do I have to do? Could you explain that please.

Don't associate .exe with anything. They are programs, they DO NOT need to be associated.

Once you've run the merge, just check if the .exe in question will work correctly now.

Oh yes. Of course. My confusion came from the wording of the link I was using. It said (regarding a time after right clicking on REG file and choosing Merger) "When you use the Open With dialog to associate .exe files with another program, the settings are stored in the (above) registry key." So I took that to mean there was another action that I had to do after selecting Merger. Thanks for clearing that up for me. So just to test and see that I really do understand what to do it's the following. At the appropriate point in the process I'll select Merger and everything should be OK? I should be able to reinstall Word Reader and after that the .exe program (in my case it's Internet Explorer plus all my other programs, which are a mixture of both .exe and .doc types) should open with no further problems? Sorry to appear so dim but I realise how important it is to get this right an I'm just trying to make sure I understand what to do.

You won't need to reinstall Word Reader unless you've uninstalled it.

Once you have removed the association between .exe files and Word Reader (by merging the .reg file) then programs (Internet exploder) should work again.

.doc files are not programs, they are documents. These files DO need associating with a program, most likely Word, or perhaps Word Reader.

Very much obliged to you Cyclone. I feel so confident that I've understood it now that I'm going to try it out. If for any reason it doesn't work I'll get back to you using my laptop instead of this desktop machine.