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How to set the default program for opening files without an extension in Windows?
Many files originating in the UNIX world come without file extension. Popular examples include README, INSTALL, LICENSE.
We know for a fact that these are text files. It is therefore a bit disappointing not to be able to just double-click them open in Explorer and see them in Notepad (actually, Notepad2 because of the UNIX line endings which silly Microsoft Notepad doesn't render correctly).
Does anyone know of a way to create a file association for, say, README files without extension? This could then be replicated to cover the most frequently occurring file types, and then double-clicking them open would work.
Update (Sort of in response to all your comments.) Thanks, folks, your comments and answers have helped me.
@Indrek, yes, I was under the assumption that you could somehow create an association for just README or Makefile, and couldn't do so for files without extension. Turns out the contrary is true, and yes, that is a workaround that neatly solves the issue.
Ultimately, I just want to be able to double-click to open a README or Makefile, that's all.
@Sampo, the SendMe trick is also useful, although usability is not as great as a straight double-click. (I'm really lazy sometimes.)
Turns out the following trick using ftype and ftype from an Administrator prompt does the double-click enabling job:
assoc .=no_ext
ftype no_ext=%SystemRoot%\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE %1
:: You can see it created some entries in the registry:
reg query hkcr\no_ext /s
reg query hkcr\. /s
