FIXED: UBER bizarre text file association issue

[Gray_Area]

Today, I backed-up, re-formatted, and copied back data to my 'Back-up' drive. I have two drives: C (system) and D (data) partitions on one; F is 'back-up'.

I use Wordpad for text files. At one point I noticed my rtf files on my D partition were not showing the Wordpad icon. (Some of the files I created today, before and during the above-mentioned process.) I try to change the file associations; Wordpad doesn't automatically show in the list; when I browse to where it is and select it, it doesn't get added to the list.

I can open rtf files if I have Wordpad open and file>open>[file].

I've run MSE and Malwarebytes, and both say all's good.  (This is late-model XP32.)

What the hell happened?

[Gray_Area]

Okay, I figured out how to reset the file association via Folder Options. RTF files open in WordPad.

BUT. File names can have no spaces, nor even underscores between words - hyphens and punctuation are okay (??) - else it will try to open the file, and an error message comes up saying it can't find the file 'dir:part (but not all) of file name.

What is that about?


PS: at one point during the process mentioned in the original post, I went Tools>Synchronize, and selected that. I thought some options might come up, but nothing happened. Is this maybe my problem?

[headkaze]

Try putting double quotes around the filename (ie. "%1")

[Howard_Casto]

Okay, I figured out how to reset the file association via Folder Options. RTF files open in WordPad.

BUT. File names can have no spaces, nor even underscores between words - hyphens and punctuation are okay (??) - else it will try to open the file, and an error message comes up saying it can't find the file 'dir:part (but not all) of file name.

What is that about?


PS: at one point during the process mentioned in the original post, I went Tools>Synchronize, and selected that. I thought some options might come up, but nothing happened. Is this maybe my problem?

Files with spaces in their names going wonky is a symptom of storing them on a FAT (not fat32) filesystem.  FAT doesn't support spaces... you should NEVER format your backup drive to FAT.  That's the only thing I can think of.

[headkaze]

The default command line for RTF documents in Windows XP 32-bit is

Code: [Select]

"C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories\WORDPAD.EXE" "%1"
Note the double quotes around the %1 variable. Without them it will interpret each word in the filename as a separate parameter.

[Gray_Area]

No, all my drives/partitions are NTFS. Besides, I'll remind, the files I'm having trouble with are on my data partition which is drive 0 (and which I didn't in any way modify). Back-up drive is drive 1.

Also (this came to mind last recently), any other file types (image, video, audio) with spaces in their names have no trouble loading. There's gotta be some files/folders setting related to how Wordpad handles text files, or something else more esoteric in Windows related to those (as Notepad doesn't behave similarly). I just have no idea what, and nothing comes from my searches.

Try putting double quotes around the filename (ie. "%1")

I get the same error opening them (within quotes) from the command line. (Without quotes gives me the infamous 'cannot be recognized as a command....' message.)

[Gray_Area]

Okay, I fixed this. I'm not sure why it works, except that 'write document' makes sense. So this is what I did:

Explorer>Tools>Folder Options>File Types

- scroll to and click on RTF (you could just delete it right here, but I didn't)

- press 'New' button, put 'RTF' in file extension box

- click 'advanced' button; 'associated file type' menu, scroll down to 'Write Document'.

- select 'ok' (this also changes the icon used to some little document with a fountain pen on it).

- close the Folder Options box. ALL DONE!

[Gray_Area]

Seems this is a work-around, as I have to do this for any file I want Wordpad to read. I'll probably have to re-install for good measure.

[headkaze]

Try right clicking on an RTF document then select "Open With->Choose Program...". Select WordPad and tick "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file".

[Drnick]

The settings that are associated with RTF Files are most likely corrupted within your registry.

Try the following.

1) Open up windows explorer
2) Click on Tools, Folder Options, File Types.
3) Scroll down until you find the RTF File type
4) Highlight it and click on the Advanced Button
5) Click on Open, then Click on Edit (If you dont have an open option click on new and call it open)
6) Application used to perform should be set to the following line (It includes all the ")
"C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories\WORDPAD.EXE" "%1"
7) Tick in box for use DDE, Leave DDE Message blank, Application should be WORDPAD, Leave DDE Application not running blank, Topic = System
8.) Click on OK, check the box for confirm open after download.  Click on OK again and your RTF files should now be reassociated with wordpad correctly.

Failing that it is possible that something has gone completely awry.  I managed to replicate your issue and the above did not really solve it so
try checking if you have a wordpad.inf file in your windows\inf folder.  if so then try reinstalling the inf (Right hand click and install).

Then run through the options above and see if it works, it did for me.  Although as a final thing I had to change the icon as even though it was showing it when I went to browse for icon it said it could not find and I had to point it at wordpad.exe again.

Hope this helps.