Association

A term used to describe software programs installed on the computer that opens files on the computer. For example, in the Microsoft Windows operating system, a file with a .TXT extension is associated with Notepad or WordPad by default. When opening a file, the default associated program opens the file. If no program is associated with the file, you will be asked what program to use to open that file.

• How to associate a file with a program in Windows.
• Additional information about file associations and extensions can be found on our file extension page.