Windows Media Player Classic has associated all .DAT files to itself because that file extension is included in the MPEG Media File for DirectShow. I'm not sure if I'm framing my question(s) right but maybe you can get the gist of it. I can remove the .dat from the list of MPEG Media File extensions in Classic, but I noticed it did nothing to change it from the media classic association in the Windows File Types. Should I/can I change the file association in Windows Folder Options/File Types? If so, do all normal dats open with notepad or can there be other associations too? "Open with" for normal text-type dats gives me the option to choose notepad (along with Classic) but I don't know if I should click the "always use this". If I just leave it the way it is, could the Windows Classic association interfere with other programs that use DAT files? For example, I'm backing up some .dat files in Sygate so that if I ever have to reinstall it, I can just put my latest settings back in automatically. Since it's associated with Classic, I'm wondering if those backups would restore correctly. I guess I could turn those off in Classic and turn them back on in Windows Media Player...maybe the setup is different in WMP and Windows know how to differentiate between different types of dat files. (Haven't tried that yet.) But WMP is so sucky. I only upgraded to 10 because I thought it might install codecs that I needed for other programs, so I never use WMP unless I have to. Anyway, am I worrying about nothing or do I need to do a little tweaking?
What is there to worry about? Just leave it like that, I think the majority of people have left it looking like that -even if it hasn't been associated to media player- or it has no icon association anyway. If it's not causing any harm, or nothing is REALLY wrong with it then don't both changing it at all
Thanks. I guess as long as it doesn't create any real problems I'll go with what you said. It just surprised me the first time the player popped up out of the blue like that when I was looking at a normal dat. When stuff like that happens, I want to know why, how to get it back to "normal", and preferably never have it happen again. That's just my nature. lol!
