A file type key has values and subkeys that determine how Windows treats
associated files
File Type Associations | 127
The Registry
DefaultIcon
The (Default) value in this key contains the full path and filename of
the file containing the icon used for all files of this type. See the next section,
???Change the Icon for All Files of a Type,??? for details.
Shell
Each subkey of Shell corresponds to an item (called an action) in the
file??™s context menu. See ???Customize Context Menus for Files,??? later in
this chapter, to find out how this branch is structured.
ShellEx
The ShellEx branch lists Windows Explorer extensions, add-on programs
designed to interact with Explorer and add features. This branch
is covered in the ???Fix Wonky Shell Extensions??? sidebar, later in this
chapter.
Once you know where all the essential keys are, you can use Registry Editor
or one of the other tools mentioned in the upcoming sections to do just
about anything you want with Vista??™s file types system. When you have
everything the way you want it, don??™t forget to take some steps to protect
your customized file types from overzealous application installers, as
described in ???Lock Your File Types,??? later in this chapter.
Change the Icon for All Files of a Type
Every file type has a default icon, the icon shown for all files with filename
extensions linked to that type. Yet Vista offers no way to choose your own
icons??”apart from editing the Registry directly??”despite the fact that you
could do this right in Windows Explorer in previous versions of Windows.
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