having the right tool for the job is important but how do you know exactly
what the right tool is i mean it might be hard to figure out how exactly they
make those cakes with the hole in the middle if you've never seen a bundt pan but your
computer knows exactly what program it should use to open say a photo or video
or a document basically every time that's thanks to today's unsung hero of
tech the file extension not to be confused with browser extensions which
you can learn about here file extensions are those two three or four letters you
see after the file name when you're poking around your hard drive so doc
mp3 and exe for example those are all
file extensions see your operating system doesn't just analyze the internal
code of a file and and try to figure out what it is that would be an inefficient
and inexact process instead whichever program created the file will slap an
extension onto the end to tell the os exactly what kind of data is inside for
example if you've ever saved a document in word you've probably seen that drop
down menu that lets you pick exactly what format you want the file to be
saved in after you make your choice word will attach the appropriate extension so
that Windows will know to use word if you've saved it as a standard word
document notepad if it's plain text or adobe reader if it's a pdf when you open
the file the os will check the extension against a list of file type associations
you can bring up this list easily enough right here in Windows actually where you
can see and modify which program is assigned to which extension now Windows
will have a lot of default file type associations pre-loaded when the os is
first installed for example it'll automatically know to use the built-in
photo viewer app to load up a jpeg instead of trying to open it with like a
music player or something but when you install new programs they'll usually ask
if they should be the default program for opening certain file extensions
especially with popular media applications like vlc which will present
you with a long list of extensions that you can pick and choose from and
extensions aren't just useful for getting your files to load up quickly
they also help you the user see exactly what they are at a glance in the file
explorer as Windows will assign little icons to your files solely based on what
the extension is there are also times when it's useful to change a file
extension especially if you've downloaded a file from the internet that
you really want to get into it's possible that the creator of the file
stuck the wrong extension on it or the file just doesn't have one at all so
slapping a txt for example on the end of a mysterious file can at least get
notepad to open it letting you have a peek inside to see or change an
extension just disable this option in Windows 10. unchecking this box will
cause file extensions to appear everywhere it's not a bad idea if you
download a file you're not sure about in fact file extension trickery has led to
some bad malware epidemics notably the
love letter virus of the early 2000s the bad guy sent out an email with an
attachment that appeared to have a txt extension fooling the user into thinking
it was just a harmless plain text file but showing the extension in Windows
explorer revealed it was actually a vbs file in other words a script that
contained malicious code so be sure to pay attention to file extensions
whenever you download anything and be especially wary if it's an unidentified
exe or vbs as they have code that will
run when you open them so be sure you know where they're coming from so tip of
the hat to file extensions they can warn us about dodgy files and help our pcs
run more quickly and because of that they are today's
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