Files inevitable open to notepad

[Kon Fuzed]

No matter what I do, my computer wants to open .7z and .rar files in notepad. the notepad files are inevitably gibberish. I want to be able to save these file to a place where I can later extract them to the folder of my choosing. Admittedly my vocabulary of actions to take when it comes to computers is limited so I hope this is a simple fix. For example, I download the FOMM.

Step by step:

1. I click on the download file "fomm0_8_5" button right her on nexus.

2. A little screen opens up and I choose Texas as the place I want to download from.

3. A window pops up on the flat screen of my windows vista home premium headed "Opening fomm_0_8_5-640.7z".

The message goes on to tell me "You have chosen to open fomm_0_8_5-640.7z which is a: 7Z file [capital Z if that makes a difference] from http://www.fallout3nexus.com

It goes on further to ask me "What Should Firefox Do With This File?"

It gives me the "Open With: (scroll down list)" I can choose any application I want but as far as I can tell it makes no difference. I can also select "Save File". This I feel is the critical step.

4. I have selected "Save File" and pressed okay with the default "Open with Notepad" in the unchecked "Open with:" section above.

5. I now have in a separate window headed "Downloads" a blue highlighted entry marked "fomm_0_8_5-640.7z 140 KB--fallout3nexus.com 11:21pm"

6. Next to that on the left in the entry is an Icon representing the notepad file.

7. For kicks I double click the aforementioned file and instantly there pops up a lone nonsense notepad file.

8. If i click on the "open containing files" option after i have right clicked the entry it takes me to the "Downloads" section of my OS (C:)/Users/(my name)

 

Tell me what I did wrong or what I needed to do more please. Tell me what I should change. Thanks. I know the above was exhaustive and unnecessary, but I didn't want to miss anything.

[bben46]

I think this is where you went wrong

4. I have selected "Save File" and pressed okay with the default "Open with Notepad" in the unchecked "Open with:" section above.

 

When you download a file you do not want to open it with anything, you want to save it to a place on your HD. It is easier if you designate a particular folder to save all files to.

 

After it is saved as a .7z file, you want to open it with 7-zip, not notepad. notepad is a text editor, 7-zip is a file compression/decompression program.

 

To make windows recognize 7z and know what to do with it,

click start, settings, control panel, folder options.

 

At the top of the folder options window select the file types tab.

 

scroll down the list until you find 7z.

If it is in the list should be at the top or near the top,

click the change box. A new window will open with a list of programs, if it is there, select 7-Zip file manager. If it is not, you need to install 7-zip

 

It is available here: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15579

 

If it is not in the list, select the NEW box. type 7z and click OK.

Now click the change box and follow the directions above.

 

Do this for any other compressed file formats, such as zip, rar and they will open in 7-zip also. be careful not to select any non compressed files, as when Windows tries to run them it will automatically try to run them with 7-zip which will probably give some kind of error message.

 

If you have to install 7-zip, it will ask if you want to associate certain files with 7-zip, answer yes to all and it should automatically do all of this for you.

 

Hope this helps