A user asked me how he might configure SP 2007 so that when clicking a document library .txt file name, SharePoint would instead use WordPad. I think the problem is even more general than that - there are a variety of document types that users may upload into a SP document library. I have always assumed that SP would use the user's specific file associations. However, this morning, I set my file association for .txt files to Wordpad, and SP 2007 is still launching notepad. What does it take for a user to change the launching program? Thanks!

Hi, the resolution is @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms868275Warm Regards, Pratik Vyas | SharePoint Consultant | http://sharepointpratik.blogspot.com/

Thank you for that reference. I presume, then, that there is no way for an individual to set things on a per user basis.

Well, I just had a curious message from the user asking me about this topic. I described to him what I see - which is SharePoint opening a text file up in notepad. He described to me what he sees - which is that the text file is displayed in Internet Explorer in-line - that is, without starting up notepad at all. That is why he was asking how to get SP to open in an application. For some reason, his login/internet explorer/sharepoint experience is different in that SharePoint attempts to display the .txt file. While I appreciate the information in the above library, this is a bit different situation. With the same site, some users are getting data displayed in-line and others are seeing things in a separate application. Another thing that is relate. When I check the file out I get a popup that says that the file is going to be saved in my local draft file and then when I click on the file name, I get an IE dialog that warns me of dangers of opening files, then the application opens up. I've asked him to check his IE 7 add-ons to see if any of the SharePoint ones have been disabled for some reason.

> For some reason, his login/internet explorer/sharepoint experience is different in that SharePoint attempts to display the .txt file. > I've asked him to check his IE 7 add-ons My thought before seeing this last quote was to ask you if this user is using a different browser to everyone else. That would apply to a user using Chrome; Safari for Windows; Opera or Firefox but also if everyone else was using IE 7 which I presume is your company standard and this user was using IE8 or even IE9. Are you sure the identical browser is use ? SP 2010 "FAQ" (mainly useful links): http://wssv4faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx WSS3/MOSS FAQ (FAQ and Links) http://wssv3faq.mindsharp.com/default.aspx Both also have links to extensive book lists and to (free) on-line chapters

The user is using the same browser as others - IE 7. I see the same problems with some .txt files, while other .txt files open up in notepad. I see no pattern to the situation - it happens to .txt files on my site, as well as project sites. I see it happening for users with only Office 2003 installed, as well as users such as myself who have things like SharePoint designer and infopath 2007 installed beside the Office 2003. This is moss 2007 sharepoint. The underlying sql server is 2005.