Windows 8 Bible

Chapter 41

Setting Default Programs

IN THIS CHAPTER

Setting default programs for documents

Setting defaults for your user account

Setting default actions for disks and devices

Setting defaults for all users

As everyone knows, there are many different brands of toothpaste, shampoo, cars, and just about every other kind of product you can buy. The same is true of software. Everyone uses a web browser to browse the Internet, and you have many different brands of web browsers to choose from. There’s Internet Explorer, which comes with Windows 8. There’s also Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome, to name a few.

For media players, Windows 8 comes with Media Player, Media Center, or both depending on which edition of Windows 8 you have. In addition to those, there’s QuickTime, Musicmatch, and many others. When you have two or more programs capable of handling the same type of document, you might want to make one the default program that opens automatically when you open a document. Setting such defaults is what this chapter is all about.