We use a lot of applications in Windows 10 to perform different functions. Most of the time we use the default apps for most of the functions e.g. Photos App. However, we tend to prefer our favorite apps for a few functions such as browsing, watching videos, etc. Installing a new app does not automatically set it as default so we have to manually set our favorite apps as default. So whenever we want to open up a program e.g. a music video it should open with our favorite app. We can easily set and change default apps in Windows 10.
Change Default Apps in Windows 10
To change default apps in Windows 10 follow this method.
Click on the start menu or search button on the bottom left corner of your screen.
Type Default apps in the search bar and open it up.
Here you will see a list of a few default apps. Let’s suppose that we have to change our default video player to VLC. Click on the Movies and TV under the Video tab and select VLC as your default device.
You can set all your default apps this way. However, if you want to set a specific file type to run with your preferred app e.g. Running .mp4 files with VLC only. So scroll down and select “Choose Default Apps by File Type” option
Here you will see a list of file types scroll down to mp4 and select VLC as the default player.
There is another easy way to choose a specific file type. Just right click on any file e.g. mp4 file in our case that you want to run with your desired app and right-click on it and select open with. Then select “Choose other apps” and select your desired app and tick the “Always use this app to open .mp4 files” option and click OK.
Other than this there are a few more options in the default apps settings that you can use. You can set default apps by protocol. What this means is you can choose different protocols such as HTTPS or Skype and Spotify protocols you can select the “Select Default apps by Protocol option”
You will see a list of protocols you can set your desired app as default when using these protocols.
The last option in the default apps setting is set defaults by apps option. You can use this option to configure different apps to use specific protocols or file types.
Click on your desired app and select manage to list the supported file types and protocols you can configure.
This is how you can set up default applications in Windows 10. However, if you want to roll back all the changes you can just select the Reset option in the default app settings.
