Unable to set default programs in Windows 8

[Price Con]

I guess this is the right section for this query. I am using Windows 8 since past 4 months on my Dell latitude laptop. It was working fine so far. Since past couple of days i dont know what went wrong, everything got messed up. All my settings were removed, i dont know how, but probably it happened because of some wrong update. Anyways, i fixed that all except one thing.

There were few defaults i had set like Firefox as my default browser to open links, Thunderbird as default email client, and so on. These all are changed, now links take me to Internet explorer and Emails take me to Outlook. I wanted to change it back but when i click the programs in Control Panel > Default Programs, nothing happns. I mean though the programs are listed but they are not clickable.

Please help.

[Deep123]

The correct way of setting default program is from Control Panel > Default Programs > Set your Default Program. You are doing it correct but still if it is not working, then just try to use the right click context menu and see if it makes any difference.

Right click any file (Video file for example), select Open With, and click 'Choose Default Program'. Now from the list select your preferred media player, make sure that the check box below is marked and click Apply > OK.

Now go back to the file and double click. See if it opens fine in the select media player.

[Price Con]

Right click any file (Video file for example), select Open With, and click 'Choose Default Program'. Now from the list select your preferred media player, make sure that the check box below is marked and click Apply > OK.

Even that doesn’t seems to be working, I tried it already. Actually, when I set a default from the content menu, it works fine only until I restart the computer. Once you reboot the system, again back to the same situation. Any other help please?

[Generous]

It seems like there is only a solution for you problem. Simply to a system refresh and the problem will be gone. Only drawback here will be that you will loose your installed third party programs. All your settings, files and folders will remain untouched along with the apps installed from Windows Store. After refresh, you will need to re-install third party programs after I bet you wont be having any of such problems now.