Hi Tim,
In Windows 7 my personal favorite way to do file associations is:
- Use Windows Explorer to navigate to a file you want to create the association for (eg. here, .not and/or .mid, and possibly .kar if you use those. You can also choose the MusicXML filetypes .xml, .mxl, and .musicxml if you want.)
- Right-click on the file and choose "Open with..." from the command list.
- Go to the bottom of the "Open with" command list and select "Choose default program..."
- The following dialog will show up. Be sure that the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" is checked.
- FileAssocWin7.jpg
- Now you can either select a program from the list (notation composer 4 is labelled specifically as that in this list) or you can use the "Browse" button to navigate to the Program Files folder for the application you want to use. If it's in the list of programs that Windows presents, just choose it and click the "Ok" button and you're done.
- If you have to navigate to find Composer 4 click the "Browse" button. Since notation composer 4 is a 64 bit application, it will be at C:\Program Files\Notation_4\Composer_4 and then select the Composer.exe program item. Click the "Composer.exe" file, and then then "Open" button for the dialog box.
- Make sure the "Always use the selected program ...." box is still checked, then click "Ok." The file association is now set for "notation composer 4" to open the filetype.
- Lather, rinse, repeat for other filetypes you want to set composer 4 to open.
Hope this helps. If not, let me know what steps you're using and I'll give it a whirl.
ttfn,
Sherry