Windows Explorer Question

Okay, I realize that I am not the most computer savvy person, but I just did something and I’m not sure how to undo it. Maybe I should explain what I was doing first. I have The Sims and several of the EPs. I was reading a page telling how to download houses from the internet and was in Windows Explorer looking at the files and folders (haven’t downloaded anything yet, don’t want to mess anything up).

Anyway, under houses are ALL these houses listed (house01.iff and so on). Well I wanted to see what they were, since I haven’t even built houses on all my lots in the first neighborhood yet. So I clicked on one of them and got the dialogue box that says to pick a program to open the file in. Underneat the list is a check box that says “always use this program to open this type of file”. Well, not being sure what I was doing, I unchecked the box. I KNOW I did. I tried to open the house file in something or other, and it wouldn’t open. So I went back and tried to open it in something else. Well I guess the second time I forgot to uncheck the box. Again the file won’t open , but now I am not getting that dialogue box anymore, just a message that it can’t open the file in this program!

I tried looking in Help, but since I can’t get the box about which program do I try to open it in, I can’t figure out exactly how to word my search and am not coming up with anything!!

So if anyone can help me with how to get it to stop doing that, it would be greatly appreciated!! Also, if anyone knows how to view these houses, that would be cool too (they would all be what came on the games themselves). I have downloaded objects, but I’m wanted to download some houses (I enjoy decorating, but not building the things).

The first thing to remember is to try to remain calm. Okay, I know that Paint Shop Pro opens IFF files. You can download a demo version from www.jasc.com.

Once you have a program installed that opens IFF files (such as PSP), right click on the IFF file and select ‘Open With’, then ‘Choose Program’. If you’re using Windows 98, you might have to hold down the shift key while right clicking.

I’m using my Linux box atm so I can’t give an exact step by step guide, but I’ll do my best.

In Windows Explorer, under one of the menus (perhaps “tools”) there should be an selection called “folder options”. Selecting “folder options” brings up a window with a few tabs, one of which should be “file types”. Go to the “file types” tab and you should see a list of file types and the programs currently associated with those file types. You want to find the entry for “IFF file” and delete it so that next time you try to open an IFF file, windows explorer will prompt you for a program to use.

–V