Restore BMP file association settings to their original "out of the box" values.

Actually, The Types Tab should determine all file associations.

If that does not fix it ( and you need t recheck that it has not changed back after a reboot ), then you probably have other issues.

Malware, or Sw conflicts.

What particular issues are you having and why do you suspect BMP ?

I hope this helps !

First,  thanks for responding.

BLUE:  I believe you are correct.

SysExpert:
I don't think it's that simple. (although I DO tend to make things more complicated than they nned to be.)
IE:
I restored a virgin image of an XP workstation and then did a search of the registry for references to ".bmp".

Found quite a few.

I then deleted the ".bmp" association via the "file types" tab of the "folder options" in control panel.
Rebooted and then rechecked the registry for reference to ".bmp".

there were fewer but still a quite a few.

I re-added a ".bmp" association and found that the registry entries that remained after I first deleted the ".bmp" association remained unchanged.

I had hopped that when I deleted the ".bmp" file association ALL refernces to ".bmp" files in the registry would have dissapeared.

Various applications make changes to these ".bmp" references in the various hives.
What I had hopped to find was a way to restore all references to ".bmp" files in the registry so they look like they did when XP was first installed.

I have an issue with a propriatory application.
And the developer of this app tells me the problems is that the file associations for ".bmp" types is messed up because other applications such as Crystal have been installed on the workstation after the propriataryt app was installed.

THAT then,   is my motivation for seeking a restoration to virgin status for ".bmp" registry references.

Then... if that is important, the developer should make sure the BMP association is reset according to the needs of the application when it is installed.

That would also assure that reinstalling the application would, of course, reset the association.

Don't you agree?

Zee

Hello again Blue:

The default ".bmp" associations work perfectly well on some thousands of workstations.

There are however,  a hundred of so that are experiencing an issue with this appication.
These workstations belong to my problem childred.

Applications like Crystal,  and others,  have been installed after the propriatary application was installed and working.
That is when the problems began.

Short of doing a complete image reload,  I was hopping to reset all references to ".bmp" file associations back to the orignal state to comply with the advice of the developer.

It may turn out mind you,  that resetting the ".bmp" file association settings may NOT fix the problem.

But I'm not sure what else I can do.

Why not a repair of Windows?

You can test one of the workstations and see how it comes out.

You probably already know how to do it, but here is a link I like:

How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Be aware that you should uninstall IE7 before repairing.

Zee

Good Monday morning everyone.

Thanks to all of you,  I have manager to fix the issue on my "problem" pcs.

Here's the deal:
Out of the box,  XP has "BMP" file association registry entries.
As it turns out,  the entry that was causing my problem was:
HKEY\CLASSES_ROOT\.bmp
Specificlly,  the "value data" for the "Value name (default)" for the above key.

The application that was causing me problems,  expected to find a deafult "value data" of "paint.picture".
(BTW,  this IS the default "value data"  that is found for this key after XP is installed.)

For some reason,  on ALL of my problem pcs,  the default "value data" was set to something other than "paint.picture".
I suspect that SOME application changed the "value data".
(I'll now start on another quest to identify that application.)

What I learned was that even if you delete the file assocation for ".BMP"  and recreate it,  (via the control panel / Folder options / File type tab) the "default" value is NOT reset to "paint.picture" as is the case rght after Windows XP is installed.

Hmmmm.
Very starange.

Anyway,  things are better now.

Thanks to everyone for your patience and advice while I worked though this issue.

Ray in Wisconsin

:)

You're welcome.

Happy to read your comments above.

Cheers,

Zee