Published: May 08, 2008 02:39 am            

How to find the right program to open an attachment

Computer Bytes

If you have ever received an email attachment and upon trying to open it received a message, “This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action,” you may be uncertain as to what action to take or even what this means.

A program association lets the computer know which program to use to open a particular file. For example, an attachment with a .doc extension is associated with Mircrosoft's Word program so your computer would automatically open this file using Word. A .jpg or .gif file would be associated with the graphics program you use on your computer.

If you cannot open an email attachment, you will want to save it to your desktop as follows. Microsoft Outlook: right click the attachment and select “save as.” Yahoo: click the attachment then click “download attachment.” (Only download if you are certain of the reliability of the sender.) Firefox: from attachment, select 'save to disk'. Internet Explorer: from attachment, select “save.” Option: If you save a file to one of the drives in your computer, make sure you make note of it's location for ease in locating and opening it once you find the associated program.

Now that you have the attachment saved to the desktop, you can “right click” and select “open with.” This will open a pop-up menu. From here you can select “default program” or if you do not see the program needed to open the file you can “browse” the list. Find the program you need and “double click.” Depending on the type of file you want to open, you may need to “double-click” the .exe portion of the program used to open the file.

What happens if you don't know which program to use? Or you get a message that there is no file association. If your computer's Operating System (OS) doesn't automatically offer to look online for the program, you can perform the search yourself. Simply put the file extension into your search engine of choice (I find Google gives the best results) and perform a search. You will get many results defining the extension along with information on the programs required to open it. From here you can go back to your computer and select the correct program.

Sometimes you will find you do not have the necessary program needed to open an attachment. In this case, you will need to have the person resend the attachment in a format your computer can use or if it is a program you will be using frequently or needing for a new project, you may find purchasing the program or finding a “free” download is the answer. When dealing with email attachments, always make sure your computer's virus protection is current and turned on.

        

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