Here is How to Fix This File Does Not Have a Program Associated With it For Performing This Action Issue
In this article you will find out:
- how to deal with this issue
- how to protect your data
Are you ready? Let's read!
About This Issue
When you try to launch certain applications, you may receive the message “This File Does Not Have a Program Associated With it.” This issue will prevent you from accessing the application.
Users report mainly problems of the following nature:
- The message “There is no program associated with this file to perform this action using a USB drive” is most often associated with an activated autorun function.
- The message “Excel is not associated with this file, Explorer.exe” affects various system applications.
- The message “There is no program associated with this file to perform this action OneDrive” is more often associated with default file association settings.
- You may also receive a generalized message: "This file is not associated with a Windows 10, 8, or 7 program."
Try using the solutions provided below for this problem, in most cases they perfectly resolve this error and return access to the files
1. You Need a New Account
You can create a new Windows user account and, if everything goes well, just transfer the necessary data to the new account.
To do this, open the Settings application and select the Accounts section.
On the tab Family & Other People, click Add Someone to This PC. Next, select the option and select I Do Not Have Login Information For This Person, Add User Without a Microsoft Account. Now carefully enter the username and password for the new account and click Next to finish creating the new account.
2. Examine Administrators Group
You can fix the error This File Does Not Have an App Associated With it by adding your user account to the Administrators group. To do this, follow these steps:
Press Windows Key + R at the same time and type lusrmgr.msc, then press Enter or press OK. Open the Groups folder in the left pane and select the Administrators group in the right pane. In the window Properties, click the Add button and in the Enter the Object Names to Select box, enter your username and click Check Names. Click OK if you are satisfied with everything. If not, you can click Advanced and Find Now to manually find your username. Now your user account should be added to the Administrators group, then save the changes. To do this, it is recommended to log out and log back on to Windows 10.
3. Work with Registry
Any Change to the registry is risky for your system, but it can help in fixing the error the File Does Not Have a Program Associated With it or Performing This Action. Therefore, to avoid system instability, first create a backup of the registry, and then proceed with editing the registry with peace of mind.
To modify the registry, press Windows Key + R, type regedit and click OK.
Go to the left pane to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT lnkfile key and check if the IsShortcut value is available. If not, right-click an empty space in the right pane and select New. Next, click on String Value' and enter IsShortcut as the name of the new string value. Finally, close the registry editor.
Alternatively, in Registry Editor, you can do the following:
Go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT CLSID {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} shell Manager in the left pane and double click in the right pane. Next, set the Value parameter to% SystemRoot% system32 CompMgmtLauncher.exe and save the changes.
If that doesn't work and you can't open any folder on your computer, try deleting certain keys from the registry.
To do this, do the following:
In the registry editor in the left pane, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Directory shell and expand the shell key. Next, delete the find and cmd keys and close the registry editor.
4. DISM & SFC
You may be getting the message This File is Not Associated With the Program because some of your system files are damaged. In this case, it is recommended to perform SFC and DISM scan. To get started, do the following:
Press Windows Key + X and select Command Prompt (Admin) or PowerShell (Admin). First type sfc / scannow and press Enter, and after the SFC scan is complete, run DISM scan. To do this, run Command Prompt as administrator and paste the DISM / Online / Cleanup-Image / RestoreHealth command and press Enter.
DISM scan will take longer than SFC scan, so please be patient, everything will be fine.
5. Turn Off AutoPlay Option
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, activated autoplay for all devices may cause the error under investigation.
Therefore, disable this feature as follows: Open Settings and go to the Devices section.
From the menu, select Autoplay, uncheck the option Use Autoplay for All Multimedia Devices. Also set Take No Action for Removable Disk and Memory card. This will help you disable the autorun option completely.
6. Work with File
Windows 10 usually opens files using default applications, but some users change these options. Resetting the default file association is easy enough and is an effective way to fix the This File Has No Program Associated With Its error.
So, open the Settings application, then the Applications section and select Default Applications from the menu on the left. Next, go to the Reset to Microsoft Recommended Defaults section and click the Reset button.
The problem with file associations should be completely resolved.
7. Use PowerShell
If the previous methods didn't help much, you can reinstall all Universal Apps using PowerShell.
To do this, press Windows Key + S and enter PowerShell (Run as administrator).
In theExecute the following command: Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Where-Object {$ _. InstallLocation -like "* SystemApps *"} | For each {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$ ($ _. InstallLocation) AppXManifest.xml"}, press Enter.
This should help you solve the problem.
8. Restore OS
Eventually, you may have to perform a system restore:
Press Windows Key + S and enter system restore into the search bar. Select Create a restore point and open the System Properties window. Next, click the System Restore button, click Next and check the Show More Restore Points Box. Select a suitable restore point from the list provided and click Next. The System Restore Wizard will guide you through the recovery process.
Some users, probably, when trying to fix system errors, come to the conclusion that they have lost or damaged their personal data
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