Yeah, I did that too, but the exe extension was not there. And all the registry entries checked out too for some reason. But the tool somehow fixed it.

Btw, you know of any good decompilers for .com files? I want to contact the author for the source, but the feedback form linked from the copyright page (right at the bottom under “Contact Information” gave me a 404.

Explorer does an automatic file association check whenever it open a file – so when you try to launch an exe from within explorer (ie. double clicking on a shortcut) it does the check, and fires up MS Word. When you launch it from a batch file you actually execute the file directly and explorer does not have the opportunity to preempt execution and open the file in word.

1. User gets an exe file
2. User double clicks it and nothing happens
3. User right clicks on the file and says Open With chooses Microsoft Word
4. User forgets to un-check the “Always use this program to open this type of file” box
5. .exe extension gets associated with MS Word

I’ve seen this happen. You can usually get rid of the problem like this:

1. In explorer go to Tools, Folder Options
2. Go to File Types tab
3. Find the entry for EXE files
4. Delete it
5. Possibly reboot – just in case

Which is essentially what you did via registry but this is more straightforward way of tackling the issue.