.EXE & .Lnk files open with notepad

[ItazukiShi]

My brother's mate came over and just before he left he opened a notepad file that set .EXE & .Lnk files to open in notepad.

Basically, how do I return it to open normally?

[Fate]

First thing to do is to right click -> Open With -> Choose Default Program.

If that doesn't work you'll need to do some registry wizardry.

[Pinecleandog]

Depending on what OS you are using, launch regedit.exe

After doing so there is a navagation bar on the left. Just like windows explorer.
Go to this following location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts

There will be a huge list of file extensions. Find .EXE

After that you will see 2-3 sub keys in the the .exe key.

Delete all three, close regedit.exe and log in and out.

I would recommend backing up your registry; simply go to File -> export

[editline]25th September 2012[/editline]

Also, If you can't actually execute regedit.exe

Go to the task manager, find the "New Task..." Button and enter this path in:

C:/Windows/regedit.exe