I depend upon my text editor UltraEdit to open many types of ASCII and even some binary files for editing. I do this by double-clicking on the file name in Windows explorer. For example, when I double-click on a file with the name of FILENAME.TXT, it automatically runs UltraEdit because I've associated TXT files with UltraEdit.

I have also associated a bunch of other file types with UltraEdit, such as LOG and RPT, because those are also ascii files with a different file extension. I have even associated files named ME and 1ST because I sometimes get files inside of zips named READ.ME or README.1ST and I want those to open in UltraEdit as well.

However, I have always run into one problem, which is that sometimes I have a file with no file extension. For instance, when I get a unix software package, its readme file has no file extension. The file is just named README with nothing at the end.

Windows won't automatically associate a file without an extension. When I double-click on README, it says "what program would you like to use to open this file" and it lets me select UltraEdit. However, the little checkbox of "always use this program to open files of this type" is grayed out.

I wanted a way to associate "no file extension" with UltraEdit. I finally found out how in a Microsoft Knowledge Base article, while I was stumbling around looking for something unrelated.

Here's how you do it. You associate with the extension of .
(Just a period)

I did it by hand-editing the registry, but I think it might be doable in the "File Types" dialog, too. Do it like this:

REGEDIT4 

 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.\shell\open\command]

@="D:\\utils\\UEDIT32.EXE \"%1\""

You could do this for any program. For instance, you could do the same for Wordpad if that's what you prefer:

REGEDIT4 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.\shell\open\command]

@="wordpad.exe \"%1\""

Does anyone else find this extrememly useful?