Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hi There
Yesterday I noticed the laptop OpenOffice files had all been changed to excel default
This laptop belongs to a bowls sports club and used to have Microsoft office but because we were only using OpenOffice we let the subscription lapse.
About a month ago I notice Microsoft offering a free excel trial (speech bubble on one of the files on the task bar)
To get the files back to OpenOffice auto opening I clicked on one of the files and went to properties and changed the "open with" from excel to OpenOffice. This changed all the other files back to OpenOffice. No-one else who uses this laptop would know to do that so I assume it happened during a Microsoft update.
Has this been reported before?
Cheers JIm

If you search the forum you will find the answer is "YES".

What words do I use to find these posts?

Changed to word; converted to microsoft are a couple of possibilities.

And the fix is to set File Associations to use OpenOffice to open these files.

MS updates will frequently change the default application to open such files back to MS Word, and you may have to reset File Associations to OpenOffice regularly after MS Windows updates. Welcome to the MS lock-in policy!

jimbokea2 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 6:36 am What words do I use to find these posts?

Well, my first thought when I read your follow-up question was <some profanities>, but I guess the optimal search term would be "association". At least one question or answer in each thread about the subject at hand should contain that word.

Where do I reset file associations?
As I said in my original post, right clicking on a calc file and going to properties, reset the 'open with' to OpenOffice changed all the calc files. Not sure how that worked but it did. I noticed when everything was set to open in excel, it included all the files on a USB too which would not have been involved in an update.
Jim

About file association will tell you more about file association, from the mouth of the horse. Note that changing file association also changed the application icon that is associated with files.

Perhaps see [Tutorial] Setting the default program to open files; for more on changing.them. I assume you are using some variety of Windows. You might consider updating your signature to include information about your operating system.