File name extensions. Why do files need name extensions - basic types What the extension indicates

So in today's lesson you will learn what are file extensions, and how you can change this very extension. The most observant or more experienced computer users have probably already noticed that any file of the Windows operating system has its own name, which consists of 2 parts: the name itself, which is displayed, in fact, under the file itself and the extension, separated from the name by a dot. Here's a simple file name scheme with an extension:

filename.extension

The extension is needed so that the OS can determine what type the file belongs to and what program it should open.

Here are the most common examples of extensions in any version of the operating system from the Windows series:

.txt- standard text file

gif; .jpg; .bmp; .png- common graphic file formats

.mpg; .avi; .vob- video files (video)

.flv Is a popular Flash format. Video files in this format "weigh" much less than video in AVI or MPG formats, which is why they are widely used to watch videos directly on sites.

.pdf- Adobe Reader document. It is used to create e-books and all kinds of manuals for various equipment and software, which are attached on a separate CD with the product.

.exe- an executable file used in Windows OS to directly launch the program itself. When you double-click on a file with the same extension, the program to which this "exe-shnik" belongs will start.

.zip; .rar- the format of the popular archivers WinZIP and WinRAR.

/; .htm- format of web pages. You can try to save any web page on the Internet to your computer, as a rule, it will have one of the above extensions.

.sys; .dll- system and service files required for the operation of the OS and installed applications. Deleting such files can damage Windows and crash it completely. If you are 100% unsure of what you are doing, never delete such files.

It is thanks to the extension that Windows determines what information a particular file contains. Have you noticed that when you open a file, a program specially designed to open it is launched first, which then launches the file. This is possible thanks to file extensions.

How to change the file extension and how to see it?

To display file extensions, do the following:

File extensions in Windows

Go to "My Computer => Tools => Folder Options => View" and uncheck "Hide extensions for registered file types" (in other versions of Windows other than Windows XP, the settings may differ slightly). After unchecking the checkbox, do not forget to click OK. The extensions will now be visible.

Also, to find out the type of file, just move the mouse cursor to it in Windows Explorer, after which you can see all the necessary information in the tooltip.

If you suddenly need it, you can change the file extension using the Total Commander program, which you can easily find and download using the Yandex search engine.

This concludes our lesson, you can ask your questions in the comments below, as soon as possible we will try to answer them.

File name extension is a sequence of characters that allows you to determine the format of the file. Windows file extensions are separated from the file name by a period. For example, the full name of a text document will be filename.doc, and a music track will be filename.mp3. You can bind to files of a certain extension default programs. If you specify once in the file properties that a file with this extension should be opened by a specific program, the operating system will open all files with this extension with the specified program.

For example, you want all mp3 music files to open with a specific player. Find any file with the mp3 extension in the list of files and right-click on it. In the context menu that appears, select the "Properties" item. At the top of the dialog box that appears, you will have two lines: "file type" (there you can see the file extension again) and "application" (shows the current default application for all files with this extension). In the line "application" there will be a button "Change ..." This is what you need! When you click on it, the OS will prompt you to select a program to open this file type from the list of installed programs. After selecting the desired program, do not forget to check the box next to the phrase "Use the selected program for all files of this type" and click OK.

What kind most common file extensions in Windows? For example, exe is executable files, for example, program installers, rar and zip - archives. Electronic books differ in pdf, djv or fb2 extension. Audio files usually have the extension mp3, wav or ogg. Files lossless audio(lossless compressed audio files) can have the extension flac, ape, or wav. Video files differ in the extensions avi, mpeg, mp4, mkv, flv, etc. Bitmaps can be recognized by the extension jpg (jpeg, jpe), bmp, gif, png, tiff, etc. Extension vector images depends on the program in which they are made - for example, cdr for CorelDraw.

In general, file extensions in Windows often depend on the specific application, and it may be difficult or even impossible to open files with such an extension by a third-party application. For example, files created in the graphics editor Adobe Photoshop have the psd extension (however, this program allows you to save the finished file in almost any graphic format). Text files created in Microsoft Word can be recognized by the doc extension (docx for new versions of the program), and the Open Office text editor works with the odt format. Also text files can have txt or rtf permission.

How to find out, What types of files does your operating system handle? Go to Explorer, in the drop-down menu Service select item Folder properties and in the opened dialog go to the tab File types... On this tab there will be a table in two columns - the file extension in Windows and the corresponding file type.

How do I change the file extension?

Imagine: you downloaded an archive from the Internet, but the browser for some reason saved it with htm resolution (web page resolution). Naturally, you will not be able to unpack such an archive. You need change file extension to the correct one. However, Windows may not show the file extension, including for security reasons, so that the user does not inadvertently rename the file incorrectly.

To change the file extension you need enable display of file extensions in Windows. To do this, go to Windows Explorer (double click on the "My Computer" icon on the desktop or Win + E). Go to the folder where the file is located, the extension of which needs to be changed. In the Explorer menu Service select item Folder properties. V Windows 7 there may not be a menu; in this case, press the Alt key in the Explorer window, and it will appear. Menu item equivalent to Folder properties in Windows 7 it is called Folders settings.

In the dialog box that appears, go to the tab View. V Additional parameters there should be a line: "Hide extensions for registered file types". Uncheck the box in front of it and do not forget to click the OK button! Now the file extensions in Windows will be displayed and you can change the file extension. Also, file extensions are often shown by default in many file managers, for example, Total Commander. We remind you that you can rename a file by pressing the F2 key or by selecting the "Rename" item in the context menu of the file (it is invoked by the right mouse click).

However, such a technique will not allow you to change the format of the media file. You cannot make an mp3 file from an ape file or an avi file from an mkv file simply by changing the file extensions. To change the format of audio and video files, you need to convert one multimedia format to another. Also, remember that if you change the file extension incorrectly, you will not be able to open it. We can say that file extensions in Windows are not a toy!

File extension: what is it and what it is eaten with.

A file extension is a combination of letters and numbers after the last period in a file name. Most often, extensions are 3 characters long. Extensions are used to identify the type (format) of the file. With their help, the user and the computer software can determine the type of data stored in the file.

The operating system (Windows, etc.) can assign its own program to each extension, which will be launched when files of a certain type are opened. For example, in Windows, by default, Image opens "Image and Fax Viewer". Those. it is assigned extensions jpg, bmp, gif - these are extensions for different types of image files.

You can change the correspondence of extensions and programs yourself if you have several programs installed to open files with a specific extension.

The extension is usually indicated in the form * .rar, i.e. an asterisk and a period are added before the extension characters, where the asterisk represents any filename.

The extension can indicate not only the type of information that is stored in the file (image, media file, text file), but also the way this information is encoded. For example, * .gif, * .jpg, * .bmp, * .raw, * .png and others are image file extensions, but the methods of encoding images in such files are different, and NOT every program that opens one type will be able to open another.

There are files that do not have an extension, usually system files.

If your file extensions are not displayed, then this feature is disabled on your computer. Read how to enable it in the article (click on the title to go to the article)

Below is a list of the most common Windows extensions (formats) and their data types.

There are a huge number of file formats, and hence extensions. It is impossible to remember everything, and it is not necessary. At the user level, it is enough to know a small part of the above table in order to be able to recognize an audio file from a picture or a video from a text. The rest are needed either for professional activities (images for a designer, videos for a video editor, etc.), or for administrators who operate with system files.

Please leave only your comments and suggestions in the comments. Ask all your questions on our.

All content on the site is protected by copyright law.
When using any materials from our site, be sure to indicate an active link to the source site.

All articles are advisory in nature and are not an incentive to take any action. The author of the article and the administration of the site are not responsible for any damage caused to the equipment as a result of user actions based on the above materials. If you are not sure of your actions, seek help from specialists.

What are File Extensions

And How To See Them

A file name in the Windows operating system consists of two parts: the name itself and the extension, which are separated from each other by a period. This is how it looks in general:

File name. extension

The extension is necessary so that Windows can understand what type a particular file belongs to and what program it was created by.

Here are examples of the extensions of the most commonly used files:

txt- a simple text file.

doc- Microsoft Word document.

jpg, gif, bmp- the most common graphic file formats.

mp3, wav- audio files, music.

avi, mpg- video files.

flv- video in the popular Flash format (it is in this format that videos are most often laid out for viewing directly on sites).

pdf- Acrobat Reader document. In this format, almost all manuals (instructions, descriptions) for various programs and equipment are made, which manufacturers record on the supplied CD.

exe is the executable file, i.e. directly the program. If you run such a file, the program will start working.

rar, zip- these are archives created by the popular archivers WinRAR and WinZIP, respectively.

htm, html- and these are web pages. When you save a particular page from the browser to your computer, it is usually saved to disk as a file with this extension.

dll, sys- service files required for the operation of the operating system and installed programs. Never delete such files unless you are sure of what you are doing.

as I said, it is the extension that helps windows determine what information a particular file contains. It is not for nothing that when you double-click on a file to open it, the system first automatically launches the required program, and then opens this file in it. This recognition is due to the file extension.

Often times, even the user looks at the extensions to see what type of files are currently displayed on the screen. But extensions are not always visible. It often happens that only file names are displayed, there are simply no extensions. This means that the display of extensions is disabled in the settings of your system.

To enable it, go to "My Computer - Tools - Folder Options - View" and uncheck the "Hide extensions for registered file types" checkbox there (the settings are specified for Windows XP, may differ in other versions). Click OK. After this, the file extensions will become visible.

Try it, you might like it. Personally, I cannot work if the extensions are not visible for the files.

Best regards,
Konstantin Fest

P.S. you can significantly reduce the time when sending a large file by e-mail, if you first "compress" the file with a special program.

In order to learn how to compress files yourself, it is enough to watch only 8 small video tutorials on using the most popular WinRAR archiver program.

Click now for details -

Imagine that you receive mail from your friends or colleagues, and in the attachment they sent you a document in the form of a file attached to the letter, which contains the information you need. You save this file to your computer, but you see that instead of the usual icons of some program (Word, Excel, PDF, etc.) there is no icon, and Windows thinks that this is some kind of file with an unknown format. This is often due to the fact that the file in the process of attachment to the letter by the sender (or when the file is saved to the computer by the recipient) loses its extension, and the Windows operating system ceases to understand what type of file is in front of it, and, accordingly, does not know which program you need to open such a file. What is file extension, and how to show and hide them in different versions of Windows, you can read in.

The second most common reason for the loss of a file extension is inaccurate renaming of a file, when your Windows is set to display the extensions of all known file types, and when you try to rename a file, you accidentally erase the file extension and end up with a document of unknown origin that you cannot open with a double with a click of the mouse. For example, your file was called "Letter.doc", which used to be easy to open using Word, and after renaming it began to be called "Letter for work". Please note that the file now does not have the ".doc" extension, which was accidentally erased when the file name was changed, and now this file will not be opened by a double click of the mouse, but will try to ask you which program to open this file.

It's good if you know exactly what type of file is in front of you, and you can simply add the desired extension to it, for example, doc or xls, so that it automatically opens by double-clicking on it. In a separate article, you can read about. But what if you have a file in front of you, the type of which you do not know? There are at least two ways to find out what type of file is in front of you, and give it the correct extension.

In this article, we will conduct an experiment with you - we will take several ready-made files of different formats that we considered in the above article, erase their extensions as if they were lost or accidentally deleted, and try to find out what type each file has and which one it needs to add. extension to easily open it.

Several files will participate in our experiment:

Bonnie Tyler - Turn around.mp3 - song in mp3 format
bonus.mp4 - small video in mp4 format
KeePass-2.28.exe - the installation file of the KeePass program (I will tell you about this wonderful program in one of the following articles)
math.zip - zip archive
Point Break.avi - small video in avi format
Tulips.jpg - picture with tulips
Report.ppt - presentation made in MS PowerPoint 2003
Meeting materials.pptx - presentation made in MS PowerPoint 2007
Letter.doc - a text file made in MS Word 2003
Order.docx - a text file made in MS Word 2007
4.rar app - rar archive
resolution.pdf - pdf file
Correspondence table.xlsx - a file with data, made in a spreadsheet editor MS Excel 2007
Tabular data.xls - a file with data, made in a spreadsheet editor MS Excel 2003

In the picture below, all files have their own extensions (highlighted with frames with red edges):

We delete all file extensions, and after that all program icons with which you can open these files disappear. In Windows XP it looks like this:

In Windows 7 it looks a little different, but the meaning is the same - the operating system does not know which program to open these files.

Now, when we try to open any file, Windows will prompt us to first select the program that needs to open this file:

And here you need to be careful, because the wrong choice of the program for this type of file will lead to the fact that the file will not open, and the program will generate an error, and the wrong association of the program of its opening will be assigned to this file.

Sometimes you can guess what type of file is in front of us and what extension it should have by the name of the file. But we will take the case when it is impossible to do this.

So, we have a bunch of files with unknown formats and extensions, and we need to understand what these files are.

The first way to find out what type of file is in front of us is to view the contents of these files using simple text editors, for example, Notepad, or better, either using the built-in viewers of various file managers, such as Total Commander or Far, or using free advanced text editor Notepad ++. I recommend that you download and install it as it has many advantages over your regular notebook.

We take the first file "Bonnie Tyler - Turn around", in the list of programs to open, select Notepad ++ (if you have not installed it, use a regular Notepad, but still Notepad ++ is better, because when opening large files, Notepad simply freezes), and we see some krakozyabry:

This should not be embarrassing, because to determine the file type, it is enough to look at the first line of the file contents. Here you can see that the file starts with the letters "ID3".

So, remember that if inside a file, its contents begin with " ID3“, Then this is a music file in mp3 format, and it is this extension that needs to be assigned to it. After specifying the extension, the file will be recognized by the system as music, and you can listen to it.

Open the second file "bonus" with the same Notepad ++ program and look at its contents:

As you can see in the first line of the file's content, it repeatedly mentions that this is an mp4 video file (highlighted in red in the screenshot above). In general, if you see text like “ ftypmp42“, Then, as a rule, it is a video file in mp4 format.

Doing the same operation to view the content with all other files, we get the following information:

When you open the contents of the KeePass-2.28 file, you can see that the file begins with the letters MZ - this is a sign that we have an exe file in front of us.
When you open the contents of the math.zip file, you can see that the file begins with the letters PK - this tells us that this file is an archive. Considering that Rar archives have a different entry in the file content, most likely this is a Zip archive, but be careful and pay attention to point 6 below.
When opening the contents of the Point Break file, in the first line we see a hint that we have a video file in avi format.

When opening the contents of the Tulips file, we see two words defining the file format - at the beginning of the line "ЯШя" and then - "Exif". These words define the graphic file format, in particular jpg, and in this case we are sure that we are dealing with a picture file.

Regarding the MS Office 2003 files "Report", "Letter" and "Tabular data" - all of them in the internal content begin with "RP", so it is quite difficult to immediately determine which one is made in Word, Excel or PowerPoint. The only thing that you can be sure of is that these files belong to one of the MS Office applications of version 2003 and below. Therefore, to open these types of files, you can use an iteration of three extensions, starting with "doc", then "xls", then "ppt". Usually one of them will work.
The files "Materials for the meeting", "Order", "Compliance table" are a little more complicated - since they are made in MS Office 2007 applications, in fact they are archives, and therefore at the beginning of their contents you will see the same letters as in the Zip archive, these are the letters "PK". Nevertheless, further in the same line, you can see the .xml line, it is she who will tell us that we have before us not just an archive, but a document from the MS Office series. ", Then" xlsx ", then" pptx ". One of them should work.

When opening the contents of the file "Appendix 4", we see that it begins with the word "Rar" - this is the simplest indication that we have an archive in rar format.
When you open the contents of the "resolution" file, you can see from the very beginning what the file is, since it starts with the line "% PDF-1.3". The numbers may vary, but nevertheless, the abbreviation pdf is usually present, and indicates the file format.

The second way to determine the file type requires an Internet connection, and it is also desirable that the file size be small, since we will be using an Internet service to determine the file format.

We click on the button "select a file", indicate our file for analysis (I will try to analyze one of the complex files "Materials for the meeting" to see if this analyzer can cope and understand that this file was created in MS PowerPoint 2007 (at it had the pptx extension, and we removed it during our experiment) After selecting the file, press the "Analize" button and get the following result:

As you can see, the service determined with a 97% probability that it is a PowerPoint file with the pptx extension. And since this file is also a container archive containing other files inside it, the analyzer also indicated a 3% probability that it could be a zip archive.

Let's also try to check if this service can determine the type of our file "resolution", from which we have erased the pdf extension. Upload the file to the service, click the "Analize" button and see that the service has done an excellent job with the task:

As I already said, the disadvantage of this service may be that in order to analyze the file, it needs to download it completely, and if you have a large file, then this process may take a long time, or even not reach the end at all. Therefore, if the size of unrecognized files is large, first try to use the first method of determining its type, namely, viewing the contents of the file through the file manager or the Notepad ++ editor.

You can, of course, use special programs to determine the file type, for example, File Type Verificator, but in my opinion, it will be much easier and faster to use one of the two methods suggested above.

So, dear visitors of the site, today we have sorted out how you can determine the format (type) of a file if its extension has been lost. If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments to this article.

Record navigation

Every day the user works with different files, but does not pay attention or does not know what the file extension is? Or you can call it differently: "file name extension". With the help of the file extension, the operating system understands which program can open the file, or to be more precise, when the program is installed, data is entered into the registry that indicate the extensions and also the programs that can work with them.

In order to be able to see what extension the files have, you need to enable the function of displaying file extensions.

Displaying file extensions in Windows

To enable the display of file extensions in Windows XP, go to "Start" - "Control Panel" - "Folder Options". In the next window, select the "View" tab. Further below, uncheck the box "Hide extension for registered file types", click "OK".

For Windows Vista, you need to go to "Start" - "Control Panel" - "Folder Options". In the next window, select the "View" tab. Further below in the "Advanced options" uncheck the box "Hide extensions for registered file types", click "OK".

If you are a Windows 7 user and do not know how to enable file extensions in Windows 7, then the information below is for you.

"Start" - "Control Panel" - "Folder Options". In the next window, go to the "View" tab, then uncheck the "Hide extensions for registered file types" checkbox below, click "OK".

Attention! When the user turns on the function of displaying file extensions, he forgets that if you remove the extension, the file cannot be opened. To open the file, you will need to specify the file extension.

Important! Users, I ask you, be careful when renaming a file, pay attention to the file extension. For example, if the file name is "Sample Solution .doc", you only need to change "Sample Solution" and do not delete or modify .doc.

To hide file extensions in Windows, you need to check the "Hide extensions for registered file types" checkbox and click the "OK" button. For a more visual explanation of how to remove the file extension, see above.

This is one of the common ways that a user or computer software can determine the type of data stored in a file.

The extension is usually separated from the main part of the file name by a period. In CP / M and MS-DOS operating systems, the extension length was limited to three characters; in modern operating systems, this limitation is absent. Sometimes several extensions can be used, following each other, for example, ".tar.gz".

In the FAT16 file system, the file name and extension were separate entities, and the dot separating them was not really part of the full file name and served only to visually separate the file name from the extension. In FAT32 and NTFS file systems, the period has become a common legal character in the file name, so the restrictions on the number of dots in the file name in these systems and their location have been removed (with some exceptions, for example, all endpoints in file names are simply dropped). Therefore, the standard search pattern is *.* makes no more practical sense, just ask * , since the dot symbol now falls under the concept of any symbol.

Some operating systems or file managers can map file extensions to applications. When a user opens a file with a registered extension, the program corresponding to this extension is automatically launched. Some extensions indicate that the file is itself a program.

Accuracy of indication

Sometimes the extension indicates the format only in general (for example, the .doc extension was used for many different text formats - both plain and formatted; and the "txt" extension does not give any information about the encoding of the text in the file), due to which is necessary to use other methods of determining the format.

Sometimes the extension indicates only one of the formats used in the file (for example, the “.ogg” extension was originally used for all files in the Ogg format, regardless of the codecs with which the data contained in the Ogg container is encoded). Also, the extension usually does not indicate the version of the format (for example, files in different versions of XHTML may use the same extensions).

Other ways to specify the format

Some operating systems and file systems (such as HFS) store file format information on the file system itself.
Magic numbers are sequences of bytes within the files themselves.
Shebang ( English) - in Unix-like operating systems, it is placed at the beginning of the executable file to indicate the interpreter that should be called when this file is run. Consists of a comment character (#) and an exclamation mark (!) Followed by the command to be executed with the given file as an argument.

Links

File-extensions.org
Dot What? (English)
Filext
Wotsit

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what "Filename extension" is in other dictionaries:

filename extension- The part of the file name following the dot. Information technology topics in general EN filename extension ... Technical translator's guide

DOC or .doc is a filename extension used for files representing text, with or without markup. The .doc extension was often used to denote plain text files without formatting, but later ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see ECW (disambiguation). ECW (Enhanced Compression Wavelet) is a proprietary raster image file format optimized for storing aerial and satellite imagery using ... ... Wikipedia

The computer works with information that can be text, graphic, audio or video format. All information processed on a computer is stored in files.

The concept of a file is one of the basic concepts of computer literacy.

A file is a named area of memory on a computer storage medium.

In other words, a file is a set of data on a computer medium (hard disk, CD and DVD disc, flash drive, etc.), which has its own name (file name).

File name

What characters can be used in the file name? It is recommended to use Russian and Latin letters, numbers, spaces and punctuation marks in file names. However, the file name should not begin with a period, or use brackets or braces in the name. The following service characters / \ | : *? "< >

Is there a maximum file name length? The file name must not exceed 255 characters. In fact, 20-25 characters are usually enough.

Windows does not distinguish between lowercase and uppercase letters for file names. This means that it will not be possible to store files in the same directory, the names of which differ only in case. For example, the two file names "Name.doc" and "NAME.doc" for Windows will be the same name for the same file.

File type

Do you think there can be several files with the same PRIMER name in the same directory? This is possible provided the PRIMER name has different extensions.

File name extension points to file type(sometimes they also say - format file). Thus,

"file type",
"file format",
"file extension",
"Filename extension"

Are, by and large, the same thing.

For example,

PRIMER.doc (x) - the file type is a Word document (or a file in Word format),

PRIMER.bmp - the file type is picture,

PRIMER.avi - the file type is a video file,

PRIMER.wav - The file type is an audio file.

All of these files have different names (due to different file name extensions) and can be stored in the same location, i.e. in one directory. If we draw an analogy with the names of people, then the file name matches the person's name, and the file name extension matches the person's last name. Accordingly, PRIMER.doc and PRIMER.bmp by this analogy are the same as Ivan Petrov and Ivan Sidorov. Files named PRIMER.doc and VARIANT.doc are two brothers from the same document family (with the same extension ..doc), just like, for example, Ivan Petrov and Fedor Petrov are brothers from the same Petrov family.

The file type (that is, the file name extension) is the part of the file name that begins with a period, followed by several characters.

Common types (extensions) consisting of three letters - .doc, .txt, .bmp, .gif, etc. The case does not matter, therefore .doc and .doc are the same document extension, the same file type.

The extension is an optional attribute in the file name, that is, it may not be present. In this case, as a rule, a period is not put at the end of the file name. The extension, although not necessary, is still desirable, since it indicates the file type to the Windows operating system.

Simply put, the file type is a hint for Windows with which program to open this file. For example, the .doc extension indicates that the file should be opened with the Word editor, and the .cdr extension indicates that the file is opened with the graphics program Corel Draw.

There are reserved (service) names that cannot be used as file names, since they are device names:

PRN - printer,

COM1-COM4 - devices connected to serial ports 1-4,

AUX - the same as COM1,

LPT1-LPT4 - devices connected to parallel ports 1-4 (usually printers),

CON (consol) - on input - keyboard, on output - screen,

NUL is an "empty" device.

Here are some examples of filenames that are invalid:

5<>8 / 7.txt - symbols "<», «>"And" / "are prohibited,

What's the question? - symbol "?" prohibited,

PRN.bmp - Here PRN is a reserved name.

Key points to know about file types

Depending on the file type, Windows displays various icons (icons)... The first example concerns a text editor icon:

- the icon of the document being processed by the Word editor and having the .doc extension.

The second example is for an archive file. This is the file that was processed using the WinRAR archiving program (RAR for short):

- icon of compressed (archived) files processed by the RAR archiver and having the .rar extension.

Why can't I see the file types in my Explorer?

Windows Explorer (Start-Programs-Accessories-Explorer) by default has a mode when file name extensions (types) are not displayed on the screen, but icons (icons) of files are displayed.

Learn more about how to "force" Windows to show file types:

Selecting a file type when saving a file

When saving a file, just write its name and select the file type from the available list. The selected extension is automatically appended to the file name. For example, in the picture below, the program will automatically add the extension .jpg to the file name. As a result, Windows will remember this file as "drawing in paint.jpg".

To avoid confusion when saving files, always pay attention to the "file type" line, if there is one. After all, the file type is a hint for Windows, with the help of which the system determines which program this file can be opened.

A close relationship between the file type and the program that opens this type

If you downloaded a file from the Internet, for example, with the .rar extension, but you do not have an archiver program installed on your computer to work with such "compressed, zipped" files, then do not be surprised that the file does not open. In other words, one must be aware that if you open files, for example, in a video format, then an appropriate program for working with this format must be available on the computer.

You can draw an analogy between a file (more precisely, between a file type) and a program that works with this type of file. The file is the lock, and the program that opens this file is the key to the lock. As you know, a lock cannot be opened without a key, and a key without a lock is of little value.

Computer literacy exercises:

1) Try to create two folders on your Desktop named PRIMER and primer.

To do this, on the Desktop, right-click on an empty space, and in the window that appears - on the "Create" option and, finally, click on the "Folder" option. Replace "New Folder" with "PRIMER". Then repeat all this to create a second folder named "primer". Windows gave you the go-ahead to open the second folder?

2) Go, for example, to the Word editor and try to save the document with the name PRN. Windows resolved such a name for the new file?

3) How to solve the problem: “I download files from the Internet, but they are in xsd (PM) / RAR format and cannot be opened on the computer, cannot be read. What to do?"

Get the latest computer literacy articles straight to your inbox.
Already more 3.000 subscribers