Questions in detail help solve problems
My computer runs Windows XP Home with ServicePack 2. I have 256 megabytes of Ram and a 30 gigabyte hard disk. I recently received an e-mail with an attachment but I cannot open it. The following message popped up on my system:
'DavidCopperfield 1.pps. C\DOCUMENT AND SETTING\WILLIAM\LOCAL SETTING\TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES\CONTENT.IE5\GLONO ... THIS FILE DOES NOT HAVE A PROGRAM ASSOCIATED WITH IT FOR PERFORMING THIS ACTION. CREATE AN ASSOCIATION IN THE FOLDER OPTION PANEL'.
As I am a beginner I do not understand what this means or what I am supposed to do. Can you advise me?
William Lo Quarry Bay
I would like to thank Mr Lo for formulating his question so well. One of the first things a beginner needs to learn is how to ask a question. In the early days of personal computers I would often get a question like: 'My computer doesn't work; what should I do?' I and my colleagues had a standard response: 'So, what does it do when it doesn't work?' We would diplomatically try to explain we needed more specific information.
Mr Lo has described his OS, the upgrade, amount of Ram and hard disk space. That helps a lot and is the minimum required to get help. For some problems, more information about the CPU and the machine would be helpful.
This problem is fairly easy to solve. It would seem that Mr Lo tried to do this more than once. The file's extension is '.pps' and that means it should be a PowerPoint file. (The 1 you see after the name DavidCopperfield probably means this is the second time you downloaded the file to the same directory. If you continue to do that, the OS will automatically add 1 then 2, etc, to the file name.) When you double-click on it, it should launch the PowerPoint application. That it does not, means the OS is not looking for the right application.
Despite what you may think, computers are not that clever. They do not really 'know' that a file with an extension .pps is a PowerPoint file. The OS simply handles extensions according to what it is told. If a .pps file is not a true PowerPoint file the system will still try to open it with PowerPoint. Apple once tried to make it possible for the OS to know what a file was really supposed to do but the overheads to make it work were just too much, so even Apple uses the extension system.
According to the Microsoft website, you should go to the Tools menu in My Computer and click on Folder Options. After clicking on the View tab, you will see checkbox 'Hide extensions for known file types'. Make certain this is unchecked. To change an association you right-click on a file with the extension you want to change (obviously, you want to click on something ending in .pps).
When you have done that, click on Open With. A dialogue box will pop up and you can click on the application you wish to use. In this case it could be PowerPoint or another application that can open such a file. You may have to click Browse to find what you want.
Finally, select 'Always use the selected program to open this kind of file' and make sure the checkbox is selected.
