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[James (Jim) Hillier]

When we install certain programs they will automatically set themselves as the default application to open all associated files, as part of the installation process. Some typical examples are; a media player for opening video and audio files, a word processor or PDF reader for opening documents and an image viewer for opening digital images.

When we use portable software however, because there is no installation process, the file associations are not set automatically and we must often perform that task ourselves, manually.

Now, it’s not too difficult to do that but, as with most things, it can be daunting if one doesn’t know how. I am going to show you how to set portable software as the default application; for the purpose of this exercise I’ve selected a portable PDF reader in Windows 7, but the principle remains the same (or very similar) regardless of function or operating system.

Here’s How:

Almost all portable applications will come down in a zipped (or compressed) folder and the first thing we need to do is extract the contents: Simply double click on the zipped folder to start the Windows Extraction Wizard and then click on Extract all files:


Select a suitable location for the extracted files; the location of the original zipped folder will be set by default and this is how I generally leave it. The “Show extracted files” option should be enabled by default:

Now you will have two folders in the same location and with the same name – one will be the original downloaded zipped folder and the other will be a normal folder which contains the extracted files.

To set the file association: Locate any relevant file on the hard drive (in this case it would be a PDF document), right click on the file and select Open with.

In the "Open with" window, click on the Browse button and navigate to the location of the folder which contains the extracted files (the look of some of these windows might differ slightly between operating systems but the principle remains the same):

Once located, double click on the folder to open it and then look for the application’s executable and double click on that. A new "Open with" window should now appear with the selected application added to the “Other Programs” list. (NOTE: The executable is generally the file which is associated with the application’s icon):

The newly added application should be highlighted by default; if it isn’t, highlight it and then click OK.

All done....the file association has now been set and all those particular files should now open via the portable application.

***This example was for portable applications saved to the internal hard drive. The process is identical for portable applications on flash drives or external hard drives but, of course, the USB device containing the downloaded files will need to be connected in order for it to work.