Q. What are unknown file type errors?

A. This is a pretty common problem that can occur when you download a file or try to open a type of file that your computer is not used to. It will most commonly occur if you happen to download a file that you don’t have the right software installed to open it. Examples for this would include downloading a PDF file and not having the required free Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer to open the file.

Q. Why does this commonly occur?

A. As we mentioned above, this is a problem that occurs when your computer doesn’t know which program to use to open the file. Each type of file has a different extension that clues your computer in on the application that it needs to use to read the file. For example, html files will typically be associated with web design programs, mp3 files with sound programs and doc files with Word. If you don’t have the right software installed on your computer, the association with the extension doesn’t make sense to your computer and it produces this error.

Q. How do I solve this problem?

A. First, determine whether or not you need to have special software installed on your computer for that file. For example, if you have a pdf file you’ll need Acrobat Reader. However, the waters get a little bit murkier if you are dealing with files with extensions such as php, mp4, or even png. The first type is a file that is commonly used for websites, the second is a sound or video file and the last is a graphic file.

In this case, you can train your computer to associate this extension with a particular application that is already installed. Let’s use MP4 as an example. If you have downloaded a file and you know that it is either an audio or video file, right click the icon and select Open With. Choose the software you have for audio or video, such as Real Players, Windows Media Player or Quicktime. This should open the file for you.

For php or other web files, you can usually open these with notepad if you need to edit them. Otherwise, you really don’t need to mess with them unless you are a developer. Use the same process mentioned above and then select notepad as the program you want to use.

Q. How do I keep this from happening again?

A. If you need to open a certain kind of file and you don’t have the right software, your best bet is to see what the extension is and then download the appropriate software. For graphics software, you may need an image viewer that is capable of viewing more than just gifs and jpegs. Using our png example below, some common graphics programs simply do not support this file type. However, you can download a free image viewing program that will to solve the issue.