External drive root telling me "this file does not have an app associated with it please install..."

Question

TL;DR: when plugging in external drives I get "this file does not have an app associated with it please install an app or if one already is installed, create an association in the default apps settings page" and this seems to be referring to the drive itself, not a specific file.

I have 2 external drives. When I plug them into my PC, I get a dialog telling me that:

"this file does not have an app associated with it please install an app or if one already is installed, create an association in the default apps settings page"

The title of the dialog is "D:" or "E:" - so it doesn't seem to be the related to a file but to the drive itself. That also means there is no file identified for me to right-click on and choose what app to run. (So please think carefully before asking that basic suggestion.) Almost by definition, a drive doesn't have a default app (but see below).

I've tried searching for this but only found a few hints that others might be suffering and no suggested solutions for this precise problem.

Notes:

1 The drives both used to work without this message. It's only started in the last couple of months.

2 The dialog appears shortly after plugging the drives in and recurs at intervals thereafter. It isn't modal, in the sense that another instance will display over the top of a previous one until there is an impressive stack.

3 I think at one time when I first used the drives, Windows aked me for a default behaviour on connection and I said open file explorer. I'd be happy to go back to that if there was a defined route.

I am running up to date Win 11 on a Dell Latitude 7420. On drive is a Seagate and the other WD.

Answer 1

You indicate 'The dialog appears shortly after plugging the drives in and recurs at intervals thereafter' that may indicate there is some scheduled task set to access the external drives on your system.

Click the link below to download a small free utility that does not require installation.

https://download.sysinternals.com/files/Autoruns.zip

When the file downloads, unzip it.

Run Autoruns64 as Administrator

1

Select the 'Logon' tab at the top of Autoruns.

Please provide a screenshot of all entries on that tab.

2

Select the 'Scheduled Tasks' tab at the top of Autoruns.

Please provide a screenshot of all entries on that tab.

Answer 2

The issue you're experiencing with your external drives displaying the message "this file does not have an app associated with it please install an app or if one already is installed, create an association in the default apps settings page" can be related to a few factors. Here are some potential solutions you can try:

1. Check Default Apps Settings: Since the message suggests creating an association in the default apps settings, you can go to Settings > Apps > Default apps and check if there are any issues with the file associations.
2. File Explorer Behavior: If you previously set the behavior for when you connect external drives, you might want to revisit that setting. You can do this by right-clicking on the Start button, selecting "Settings," then navigating to "Devices" > "AutoPlay" to adjust how Windows handles external drives.
3. Update Drivers: Ensure that your USB and external drive drivers are up to date. You can do this by going to Device Manager, locating your drives under Disk drives, right-clicking them, and selecting "Update driver."
4. Check for Windows Updates: Make sure your Windows 11 is fully updated, as updates can often resolve bugs and issues with hardware compatibility.
5. Try Different USB Ports: Sometimes, the issue can be related to the USB port itself. Try connecting your external drives to different USB ports on your laptop.
6. Reformat Drives (if necessary): If the drives are still causing issues and you have backed up your data, consider reformatting them. This can resolve corruption issues that might be causing the error message.

If none of these solutions work, it may be worth checking if the drives function properly on another computer to rule out hardware issues.

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References:

• Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device? - Microsoft Q&A
• Sometimes you cannot associate a program with an extension in Windows 7

Answer 3

(Answering my own question)

It occurred to me to try changing the action on connection setting.

I therefore did the following:

1. open the hidden icons in the system tray
2. right click the "Safely remove hardware..." icon and then
3. select "Open devices and printers" (there may be other routes to this).
4. scroll down to Autoplay, click on it
5. under Choose autoplay option for Removable drives, choose preferred option.

Initially I tried Open file explorer (which is where I think I was before). But I found that this surface the explorer every time Windows decided to look at the drive while idle (whereas before it opened and then went to the background). So I've now chosen "no action" as my option and all seems to be pleasantly quiet.

Final thought on why this happened:

This what I think was the root cause. My guess is that some Windows update changed the behaviour of this option, so that Explorer wasn't opened but the system still knew something was supposed to happen but not what. It has become highly ranked on my list of unhelpful error messages.