Questions[file-associations](server)

I have a custom type .acust which is associated with a homemade application. Scheduling works fine as long as it is "Run only when user is logged on" but doesn't work as a service "Run whether user is logged on or not".

An obvious workaround is that instead of running a file .acust trigger the task with the application and passing the xxxx.acust in parameter but I would still like to make the association work when the task run as a service. Is this possible ?

Issue is happening in windows server 2012 and windows 10 at least. It was not occuring on windows 2008

I am running the Terminal Services role on Windows Server 2003. Yesterday, all users started experiencing a problem where double-clicking a PDF file opens it with the NTFS short name (8.3 format), so if any changes are made, the file is saved under a different name.

I have already used ASSOC and FTYPE to ensure that the system-wide file type associations are correct.

ASSOC .pdf=AcroExch.Document
FTYPE AcroExch.Document="C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" "%1"

I used regedit to confirm that the contents of the respective registry keys (below) matched the parameters given to ASSOC and FTYPE (they did).

HKLM\Software\Classes\.pdf
HKLM\Software\Classes\AcroExch.Document

However, Windows seems to disregard these settings completely when opening a PDF. Note that using "Open With" works correctly and opens the file with its long name, despite being configured with exactly the same string. In fact, I can delete the shell/open/command key entirely without having any effect. When the user double-clicks a file, it still opens with the same program despite no longer being specified in the registry.

Even stranger is that under Folder Options / File Types, the entry for PDF File says that:

You have customized files with the extension 'PDF'. To restore these files to their default type (Acrobat PDF Document), click Restore.

However, there are no per-user customizations for this file type. I inspected HKCU\Software\Classes and there are no entries related to either PDF or Acrobat.

This problem persists between logouts. The only workaround I've found is to log off, delete the user profile, then log back in to create a new profile based on the default user. Then the user inherits the system-wide settings as expected.

My next troubleshooting step is to restart the server, but I won't be able to do that for several hours yet. Has anybody ever seen a problem like this before?

I need to associate .ps1 with powershell.exe instead of Notepad via GPO from a 2008r2 DC. I've seen one question mention CSE under Computer Configuration\Preferences\Control Panel Settings\Folder Options and setting it there. But I'm not sure exactly what to do and I can't find anything helpful anywhere.

What's an efficient way to view the last N lines of a large log file in Windows XP?

Would it be possible to then associate this method with .log files when double-clicked in Explorer?

I inadvertantly got .py files stuck to opening my editor instead of running.