PDF Opening with Microsoft Edge after Windows 10 Jan 2016 Update? We Have The Fix

It was just another ordinary Wednesday, except when you go to open a PDF document, when you expect the friendly warm red reliability of Adobe Reader - instead, the document opens in card hard blue Microsoft Edge? 

In Windows most recent update (Jan 2016) the folks over at Microsoft thought we would prefer to open our PDFs in their new browser. 

Lucky for you, this is an easy fix.

Right click on any PDF document and choose Open with > Choose another app

Select Adobe Reader and be sure to check the box that says Always use this app to open .pdf files

Done. Now your PDF icons will revert back to the familiar red PDF icon we have come to know and love. 

That is the easy answer and easy fix.

However, this speaks to a larger issue. What about the other documents, pictures, music files that you used to open in the old Windows viewer and media player? Since Windows 8 and Windows 10, your images and media files are opening in a full screen app that you cannot control. 

Lucky for you, once again, easy fix. You can change all your Default Programs from the Control Panel, here's how. 

Once in the control panel, if it does not look like below, click the View settings in the top right and change to Small Icons

Click Default Programs

If your desired default program is on the list, select the program and choose Set this program as default

However, if your desired program is not in this list, like in the example of Adobe Reader which was missing after the update, you must specify what programs open with what file types

To do this, go back to Default Programs, then click Associate a file type or protocol with a program

Then select the file type you want to specify the default program, in this example, select ".pdf" and then choose Change program... 

Select the desired program and click OK

You can do this for any typ eof file type, for example, a .jpeg and choose Photo Viewer or .wav and choose Windows Media Player, and so on.