Vista default programs and file associations

Am running Vista Home Premium SP1 & SP2 plus alll current updates. The Default Programs/Set Default Programs is empty which may be part of my problem which is that when I try to set the file association for .cda and other audio files to something other than Windows Media player - which I do not have activated - I get either 'Explorer has stopped working' or 'Host process rundll32 has stopped working.' Thus, I am unable to play an audio cd unless I go into one of the four players I have installed, QuickTime, Media Player Classic, Media Monkey & Foobar and play from there. All other associations seem to be working OK. What can I do to make the audio associations work?

Try right-clicking one of the files, open with -->, and select the program you want to use. Then check the box in the panel to open all files with that extension with the same program.

WAW8,



The 'Open With" context menu for an MP3 file gives me a choice of Windows Media Player, QuickTime or Media Monkey. QT & MM will open and play the file just fine, I don't have WMP activated. Selecting another program in 'Choose Default Program' gives me either 'Explorer has stopped working' or 'Host program rundll32 has stopped working.' 'Open With' for a jpeg file gives me Windows Gallery, Paint or QT Picture Viewer. I can change the default to any of those plus Media Player Classic and back to Windows Gallery again. Something, somewhere is lousing up the audio side of things. I've put all the usual suspects to work - CCleaner, EasyClean, Spybot, Avast, RegSeeker, Windows Defender, Disk Defrag and Registry Defrag - but they neither find nor fix the problem. I'm long past any reset point that might change things, this has been an ongoing problem for a long time.

See the new pinned post on running sfc and try that out.

WAW8



SFC "found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them", Booting from the DVD gave me "Install Now", nothing to do with repairing anything. I don't want to re-install Vista, just fix a problem.