How To – Change Default Application

 

Windows 10 allows you to set a default application to open specific file types or perform certain actions. For example, you might want .pdf files to open in an application other than Adobe Reader, or you might want to open all web pages in a different web browser.

 

Many applications will prompt you whether you want to use them as the default application for their intended purpose the first time you open them. You can choose to set them then, but if you want to do it later, you can by following these steps:

 

  1. Open the Settings panel from the Start Menu
  2. Click on Apps
  3. Click on Default apps
  4. Select the type of application you want to change your default to. For example, you can change your web browser to Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome

 

PDF files: You may notice one popular application type is not listed – PDFs. To change your default app for PDFs; at the bottom of the Default apps screen, click Set defaults by app, click on your current PDF handler (which for many will be Adobe Acrobat Reader DC) and then click Manage. You can then set .pdf to whatever you want it to open in.