Windows 11 adds slick design updates and some great new options to Microsoft’s desktop OS, but it doesn’t make everything easier. The process for changing default apps is a notable example. Windows-watching tech pundits raised an outcry about the difficulty of changing the default web browser from Edge to, say, Chrome or Firefox. Microsoft heard those cries and now, months after Windows 11's launch, has addressed the issue, making it easier to change your default browser. We'll show you not only how to make that change, but also what's involved in changing other default programs in Windows 11.
By comparison, in Windows 10 [which many still use], it’s always been easy to choose, say, a default music player. First, click on the app listed below a function [such as Email, Music Player, Photo Viewer, or Web Browser] in the Default Apps section of the settings. Then, choose a new default app that's capable of handling the media type. That's the full extent of what you need to do.
With Windows 11, the process is more complicated. You need to specify a default app for every picayune file type, not just for a broader group of them. For file categories such as videos, that's a problem because of the sheer number of formats that exist: AVI, MP4, MOV, MKV, and WMV, to name just a few. Despite this change in Windows 11, it's still not tremendously difficult to set a new default app, but it sometimes requires more effort.
You can still set default apps file type-by-file type, but an April 2022 update added a new, simpler way. We'll show you both options here.
How to Change Default Apps in Windows 11
In Windows 11, you can choose an app to open each file type individually. Here’s how:
Open the Settings app and tap on the Apps section in the left-hand menu. The Settings app is more hidden than it was in Windows 10. In Windows 11, you need to hunt for a gray gear icon. You can pin the Settings icon to the Start menu in Windows 11, but it's not there by default.
Choose Default apps. Windows 11 lists every single app on your machine. You can search for an app or for the file type you want to assign to an app.
Click on the app you want to set as the default for a file type and you’ll see the list of all file types it’s capable of handling.
Here, Microsoft Photos is set to handle all photo file types, since that program's icons appear next to the file extension entry.
Click on the file type you want to change the default app for. Then, you see a menu like the one below.
The last step is to simply choose an app from the list. [Incidentally, this app selection dialog box is one of the few window types for which Microsoft did not add rounded corners.] After that, you have to repeat the process for each file type that you want to use with that app.
'Open With' Option
Another way to change a default app is to right-click on a file in File Explorer, click Open With [which is more conveniently and consistently the second choice in Windows 11's context menu], and then pick the Choose another app option. Doing so opens up the same app selection box as in the first process, except with a checkbox to "Always use this app to open [extension] files." After that, just check the box and hit OK.
The Easier Way, Just for Browsers
With the April 2022 update, a new button appears on Settings' Default Apps page. Note that on one of our test Windows 11 systems, an optional update was required: Cumulative Update for Windows 11 for x64-based Systems [KB5011563].
The default app settings interface is the same as described as above, except if the app happens to be a web browser. In that case, you'll see this option when you're on the default app settings page for the browser:
In this interface, you simple click on the Set Default button on the right side. Here we've changed the default web browser to the longtime alternative program, Opera. The same works for Brave, Google Chrome, Vivaldi, and so on. For other non-browser types of programs, however, you still need to assign a default for each file type the application can open.
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Another Easy Way: At Installation
With the first method, you need to understand what file types you want to work with, though I expect most PC users know that JPG is an image and DOC is a document. That said, the process for changing default apps is still easier in Windows 10 than 11 because it lets you do so for all relevant file types at once. Some applications offer to do this for you automatically during their setup process. Firefox, the popular, privacy-focused web browser, and VLC, a Swiss army knife for media libraries, are two examples.
Firefox
The first time you run Firefox on Windows 11, the web browser asks whether you want it to be your default browser. If you don’t make this choice on the first run, Firefox continues to show a banner across the top of the browser window with this prompt. In testing, choosing the option at startup or the one from the banner both did the job with zero fuss.
VLC Media Player
VLC is an old-school, open-source application that’s famous for being able to play just about any media file. Choosing to make VLC the default media player at installation sets it as such for over 70 file types. Unfortunately, several important file types remained the purview of the Movies & TV and Groove music apps [note that the latter is being replaced by a new Windows 11 Media Player]. In VLC’s preferences, there’s an option called File Extensions Association, but that simply tells you to go to the Settings > Apps > Default Apps section as outlined earlier.
For more on Microsoft's new OS, see all our Windows 11 coverage.
Windows 11: The Review
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