Associate with...
 
This menu option opens a dialog box where you can associate data files with programs.
 
The association allows starting the appropriate program for a file, e.g. the editor notepad.exe, by double clicking on the file or with the ENTER key. The association is not restricted to Total Commander, but also works in Windows Explorer and Start Menu.
 
The associations are stored in the Windows registry, which contains additional information such as for printing. On Windows 2000 and newer, in addition to the associations under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, there are private Explorer associations under
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts
These are created when you use "open with" in Explorer. Total Commander can read these, but cannot create or change them.
 
If you selected the corresponding options in the configuration dialog box, the icon of the associated program is shown to the left of the file name.