Global File Associations

[morrisce]

How does one go about changing file associations for file types for all users? I’ve recently installed iWork ’08 on a computer on the network and now when I log in as a user it wants to open all of my Excel and Word Documents in Numbers and Pages respectively. How can I get it to default back to Microsoft Office for all of my Microsoft Office documents for all users. The iWork ’08 install seemed to just take over, so it must be possible.

Thanks!

Chad

[ZipZap]

Hi,
you should be able to do it with MCX by pushing out a managed preference for com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

Set the preference on your management station through Get Info > Open With > Use this application to open all documents like this

then import the com.apple.LaunchServices.plist from your management station into the relevant groups in Workgroup Manager through the Details tab.

I have had some problems where even though the preference has been set it still gets ignored and I haven’t been able to track down why. So what I tend to do is to add it to the default user template in /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences/ which hasn’t failed for me yet.

[Author]

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