Comments on: How to change default picture viewer in Windows

By: Tom Armstrong

Tom Armstrong — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:38:56 +0000

Hi Karen – First, go the folder where the picture with the .fmp file is located. Then, under “Tools” menu, select Folder Options”. Select the “View” tabs; scroll down to “hide extensions for known file types” and make sure it is NOT checked. Click “Ok”.
Now, back in the folder, click on the file – ONCE (don’t double click to open it) – and it allows you to rename the file. Make sure you give it a “.jpg” file name. It should ask you “are you sure”, just say Ok.
btw, I don’t know what a fmp file is. If it’s not in jpeg or bitmap format, then changing the extension still won’t help you. You’d have to find out what app is making the file and see if there’s a way to change it from there.
One last trick – if you ever see something on the screen and wish you could save it to a file, you can always do a screen capture, paste it into Paint and save it in any format you want!

By: Karen Tobey

Karen Tobey — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 02:27:47 +0000

OK, I have a picture and the extension on it is .fmp. Well the website does not allow them. So how do I change the extension to either .bmp or .jpg?

By: Tom Armstrong

Tom Armstrong — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:14:23 +0000

ok ok ok – I got that wrong – OPEN and PREVIEW are both controlled as you have described above. It’s “edit” on the right mouse click menu that I wanted to be different. I want to be able to change the default for. Right now, when I choose OPEN or PREVIEW, my bmp and jpg files use Windows Picture and FAX viewer. That’s what I want. When I right click and choose EDIT, the files open in PAINT. I want to change it so that EDIT will open the files in Photoshop but OPEN and PREVIEW will still open the files in Windows Picture and FAX viewer. – Anybody know how to change the default EDIT application?

By: Tom Armstrong

Tom Armstrong — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:02:18 +0000

Not quite right – This works to change the default application when you want to OPEN the file but it doesn’t change the default application used to PREVIEW the file. When you double click or right click and choose OPEN, it OPEN’s the file just as you say.

HOWEVER – if you right click and select PREVIEW, you haven’t changed the application it uses. I want to know how to change this for two reasons:
1. I’d like to preview multiple files in a directory. If I start with a JPG file, the photoviewer is handy to look at all the files in that directory – right now, if I right click on a BMP file, it will open Photoshop and that takes a minute or two to get out of.
2. The icon apparently is not the same as the default application that OPENs it. Apparently it’s the application that PREVIEWs it, or it’s separate altogether.

By: Lindsay Buchan

Lindsay Buchan — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:10:33 +0000

Sadly this didn’t work for me, I’ve done everything you said, if I right click on a picture and select properties it says “opens with microsoft photo editor” but if I double click on the picture it still opens in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. This has just started happenign in the last week or two and nothing i do will make it go back to the way it was!

By: Hunter McMillian

Hunter McMillian — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 12:51:03 +0000

This was VERY helpful thanks! I was tired of having to “select a program from the list” from default so I appreciate this very much.

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:51:45 +0000

I have used FolderOptions from time immemorial, but IMO FileTypesMan is a fine alternative. (And the download is a whopping 65k!)

http://www.nirsoft.net

From the website:
“FileTypesMan is an alternative to the ‘File Types’ tab in the ‘Folder Options’ of Windows. It displays the list of all file extensions and types registered on your computer. For each file type, the following information is displayed: Type Name, Description, MIME Type, Perceived Type, Flags, Browser Flags, and more.
FileTypesMan also allows you to easily edit the properties and flags of each file type, as well as it allows you to add, edit, and remove actions in a file type.”