Guest rogeepete Posted August 3, 2008 Posted August 3, 2008 I occasionally get e mail attachments with file types that I cannot open. I get the message that I must creat a file association in Folder Options. The ones that I seek now are .zmc and .wps. How do I create these so that I can view the e mail attachments? Thanks -- Roger
Guest John McGaw Posted August 3, 2008 Posted August 3, 2008 Re: File Associations rogeepete wrote: > I occasionally get e mail attachments with file types that I cannot open. I > get the message that I must creat a file association in Folder Options. > > The ones that I seek now are .zmc and .wps. How do I create these so that I > can view the e mail attachments? Thanks Feel like taking a chance? Take the first file type you name ".zmc" -- it is a file containing email which has been renamed by Zone Alarm Mail-safe which suggests that it has been detected as containing malware. Do you really want to open a file which has been detected as malware? http://filext.com/file-extension/ZMC As for the other one, it is a "Works" text document. To verify you can simply extract the attachment and save it and then try to open it with your own word processor -- it seems that many will open this sort of file. http://filext.com/file-extension/WPS In the future you can use the http://filext.com website to identify file types and get an idea of what they are and what to do with them. John McGaw http://johnmcgaw.com
Guest Malke Posted August 3, 2008 Posted August 3, 2008 Re: File Associations rogeepete wrote: > I occasionally get e mail attachments with file types that I cannot open. > I get the message that I must creat a file association in Folder Options. > > The ones that I seek now are .zmc and .wps. How do I create these so that > I > can view the e mail attachments? Thanks When you create data in a program - such as a word processing document in MS Word - there is an association with that type of file with the program. In that illustration, Windows knows that *.dox and *docx files are associated and will open with Microsoft Word. In order to open a particular file, you must have the program with which it is associated installed OR a program that can read that file type. So the message you are getting is from Windows telling you it doesn't know what program to use to open this file type. It wants you to point it to the correct program. In the case of *.wps files, the Works Word Processor will open them. The *.zmc file type belongs to a "Zone Alarm Safe Renamed Mail File". I found this out by going to this website and searching for the file extensions: http://filext.com/ In your case, since basically nothing else is compatible with Works and I have no idea what you'd do with the ZA Renamed Mail file, you should contact the people who are sending you this stuff and explain the whole file association thing to them as above. If these are important attachments (and please bear in mind that opening email attachments are a great way to pick up a virus), the senders need to create the information in a more universal application. If you need more help, please do post back. Malke -- MS-MVP Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic! FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ
Guest Big_Al Posted August 3, 2008 Posted August 3, 2008 Re: File Associations rogeepete wrote: > I occasionally get e mail attachments with file types that I cannot open. I > get the message that I must creat a file association in Folder Options. > > The ones that I seek now are .zmc and .wps. How do I create these so that I > can view the e mail attachments? Thanks Save the attachment first. Look at http://filext.com/ for possible help as to what program to use. Load that program. Right click on the attachment you saved and 'open with' and browse for the program you just loaded. Do not set it to "always use this program", just test it once first before you associate that program. If it works, then 'open with' again and check that box so windows will now associate it with that new program. If not, try another program etc. Once you get a working program, other programs like email should just use the assignment windows has just made (with your help) and open it from your email properly.
Guest Ken Blake, MVP Posted August 3, 2008 Posted August 3, 2008 Re: File Associations On Sun, 3 Aug 2008 06:48:01 -0700, rogeepete <arebarr@yahoo.com> wrote: > I occasionally get e mail attachments with file types that I cannot open. I > get the message that I must creat a file association in Folder Options. That message is very misleading and almost always turns out to be wrong. > The ones that I seek now are .zmc and .wps. How do I create these so that I > can view the e mail attachments? Thanks The file extension (file type) tells Windows what program was used to create the file (Microsoft Works, in the case of .wps, and ZoneAlarm in the case of .zmc). It also tells Windows, by use of the file extension, that those programs (or some compatible ones) are the ones you need to open it. Almost certainly, your problem is not that you don't have the correct association, but that you don't have the correct program to open the files. Since no computer has every possible program installed on it, none of us is able to open *every* possible type of file. Over and above the question of *how* to open these attachments is the question of whether you *should*. Read below: Opening attachments is very risky. You often see advice not to open attachments from people you don't know. I think that that's one of the most dangerous pieces of advice you see around, because it implies that it's safe to do the opposite--open attachments from friends and relatives. But many viruses spread by sending themselves to everyone in the infected party's address book, so attachments received from friends are perhaps the *most* risky to open. Even if the attachment legitimately comes from a friend, it can contain a virus. I'm not suggesting that a friend is likely to send you a virus on purpose, but if the friend is infected without realizing it, any attachment he sends you is likely to also be infected. -- Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience Please Reply to the Newsgroup
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