Can't force Excel to associate with a file

doodah · 9 Aug 2011 at 13:10

Strange issue. We have a file type called BN2 at work and I can't force Excel to open any BN2 files. Works fine on my W7 machine but not my lab managers XP machine. When I try open with, it allows me to navigate to Excel but once I click open it switches back to the 'open with' list and selects Adobe Acrobat. Excel is not added to the program list. Any ideas?

Both my lab manager and I are using Office 2010.

Participant · 9 Aug 2011 at 13:13

What happens if you open the file from within Excel?

doodah · 9 Aug 2011 at 13:23

The file will open* with Excel that way but we want to associate it as there will be potentially hundreds of them (huge data collection over several months). Just puzzled why we can't associate correctly on her machine.

*Have to do make an appropriate format for the data to be presented correctly but just involves a couple of clicks.

Participant · 9 Aug 2011 at 14:19

Perform a maintenance reinstall on his Excel would be my first action.

doodah · 10 Aug 2011 at 09:20

Its a brand new install, will have to get tech support to to do an install as you need ad administration account. Funnily enough Word and PowerPoint are in the force association list.

Sin_Chase · 10 Aug 2011 at 11:03

Manually set the association in Folder Options > File Types?

doodah · 10 Aug 2011 at 11:32

Wasn't aware of that. Didn't work at first. Excel decided to appear in the list but it was showing the 'unknown file type' icon next to it and once associated all the files showed the old RTF file format icons. They would not open - something about no Win32 program. Anyway I deleted the BN2 file type and created a new one whilst choosing an Excel work sheet and it finally worked. Thanks