How to change the file extension in Windows 7. If you have the file extension visibility feature turned on, then changing this extension is not a problem. Another question is, is it worth changing it? Not always, and even almost always, such a change ends up with the fact that your file will no longer open until you return everything to its place. For such file conversions, you need to use specialized programs or online services, which are many on the Internet and often they are free. Changing the extension manually is possible and necessary only if your file has an incomprehensible appearance, does not open, and you know exactly in which program it was created. But by default in operating systems Windows extensions hidden from view, so that the user does not accidentally erase it when renaming the file.
How to change file extension inWindows 7
What is the file extension
In simple terms, this is a special encoding of three or four Latin letters, which is written at the end of the file after a dot. The dot must be there!
Even simpler - what is written from the end to the point is the file extension. It serves to identify files. There are many such extensions, each program has its own. For example, at text editor Word extensions . doc(Word 2003) and . docx(Word 2007/2010). Knowing the file extensions, you can accurately determine which program can open and view it. That is what they are for.
What are the file extensions
There are many such extensions. We will talk about this later. And now I’ll tell you for those who still don’t know how to change the file extension in Windows 7. I already talked about how to do this in Windows XP, so I won’t repeat it. If you are interested, please read my article. There is also video video on this subject.
If the file extension is not visible, what should I do?
Sometimes operating system configured so that the file extension is hidden and only the file name is visible. This is done so that when renaming a file, a novice user cannot accidentally change the extension. Otherwise, the file may no longer open.
Making the file extension visible is not difficult. In the operating room Windows system 7 you can make file extensions visible in this way.
Enter the menu Start and go to Control Panel.
AT Control panels there is a box in the top right corner Search. Enter a word in it Folders.
File extensionis the part of the file name, separated from the main name by a dot. There are many file format extensions. And in order for the operating system to determine which program to open a particular file, its extension is put after the file name.
For example, the file Landscape.jpg , extension jpg indicates that this is a graphic file and can be opened by any standard or third-party graphic editor or an image viewer.
I will give examples of some categories of files and their extensions.
| Audio files | mp2, mp3, wav, midi, mpa, ogg, wma |
| Video files | 3fp, avi, flv, mkv, mov, mp4, mpeg, wmv |
| Bitmaps | bmp, jpeg, jpg, png, tif, zif |
| Text, documents | doc, docx, txt, xps, readme, fb2, emlx, bdr |
Every program on a computer is designed to work with certain files and extensions. Therefore, if you want to open any file, then first you need to find out which program uses the extension given file, then download it and install it.
Change file extension in windows 7possible for different purposes. For example, to create bat, html, xml files. Each person interested in this issue has his own goal, but the general task is to change the file extension.
So let's get started. Follow the steps below to change the file extension.
First, you need to make sure that the file extension is displayed.
Step 1 . Click Start and select Control Panel. For a more complete display of all components of the control panel, change view to small or large icons . Then click on the link.
Step 2 . In the window that opens, go to the tab View. In the block Extra options drag the slider down and uncheck the box Hide extension for registered file types. After that, click on the button OK.
The file extension is a 2-3 character abbreviation of letters and numbers added to the file name. It is mainly used to identify the file: so that the OS knows which program to open given type file.
For example, one of the most popular music formats is "mp3". By default, in Windows, such files are opened by Windows program media player. If the extension ("mp3") of such a file is changed to "jpg" (picture format), then this music file will try to open a completely different program in the OS and most likely will give you an error stating that the file is corrupted. Therefore, the file extension is a very important thing.
In Windows 7, 8, file extensions are usually not displayed. Instead, the user is prompted to identify file types by icons. In principle, you can also use icons, only when you need to change the file extension, you must first enable its display. Let's take a look at a similar question...
How to enable extension display
Windows 7
1) We go into the explorer, on the top of the panel, click on "arrange / folder options ...". See screenshot below.
Rice. 1 Folder options in Windows 7
Rice. 2 menu view
3) At the very bottom, we are interested in two points:
"Hide extensions for known file types" - uncheck this item. After that, you will start showing all file extensions in Windows 7.
Rice. 3 Show file extensions.
Actually, the setup in Windows 7 is complete.
Windows 8
1) We go into the explorer in any of the folders. As you can see in the example below, there is text file, but the extension is not displayed.
Rice. 4 Display file in Windows 8
2) Go to the "view" menu, the panel is on top.
Rice. 6 Check the box to enable extension display
4) Now the display of the extension is enabled, is "txt".
Rice. 6 Editing extension...
How to change file extension
1) In the explorer
Changing the extension is very easy. Just click on the file right click mouse, and select in the popup context menu rename command. Then, after the dot, at the end of the file name, replace 2-3 characters with any other (see Fig. 6 a little higher in the article).
2) In commanders
In my opinion, for these purposes it is much more convenient to use some file manager(many call them commanders). I like to use Total Commander.
Total Commander
One of the best programs of a kind. The main direction is the replacement of the explorer for working with files. Allows you to perform a wide variety of tasks: searching for files, editing, bulk rename, work with archives, etc. I recommend having a similar program on your PC.
So, in Total "e, you immediately see both the file and its extension (that is, you don’t need to include anything in advance). By the way, it’s quite easy to immediately turn on the display of all hidden files (see Fig. 7 below: red arrow).
Rice. 7 Editing the file name in Total Commander.
By the way, unlike Explorer, Total does not slow down when viewing a large number files in a folder. For example, open a folder in Explorer with 1000 pictures: even on a modern and powerful PC, you will notice slowdowns.
Do not forget that an incorrectly specified extension may affect the opening of the file: the program may simply refuse to run it!
And one more thing: do not change extensions unnecessarily.
Successful work!
Or documents into a format perceived by an electronic device, reformat text into a web page, or perform other actions. In such cases, it will be useful to know how to change the file extension in Windows 7.
What it is
AT electronic devices recorded information is stored in different formats, which are identified by the file extension. This is a combination of 3-4 characters at the end of the document name (for example, xxx.htm, xxx.docx, xxx.jpg and others). Thus, the operating system automatically evaluates what type of data the document belongs to and which application should open it.
In order for the program selected by the system to be able to decrypt the data, it is important to accurately follow the sequence of operations and correctly set the format. Otherwise, you can lose information, so its decryption will become impossible.
How to change the file extension
The data format can be hidden from the Windows user by default. Therefore, before changing the file extension, you first need to display it. For this, appropriate changes are made in the settings.
- Press "Start"
- Go to the "Control Panel" section.
- For convenience, it is better to set the view mode to "Small Icons". It can be found at the top of the menu that opens.
- Next, go to the "Folder Options" section.
- Open the "View" tab.
- In the "Advanced Options" menu, find the "Hide extensions for known file types" option and uncheck it. Then click "Apply" and OK.
