Hello seand175,
Thanks for your question.
There are many web sites that list common and, in some cases obscure
file extensions. Serching for
"windows file extension list", I uncovered FILEext at
http://filext.com/index.htm which seemed much more complete than other
sites I had visited.
Before I talk about the particular extensions you asked about, I'd
like to say that I have found several techniques particularly helpful
when I question individual files. First, right click on the file in
Windows Explorer and choose "Properties". Quite often, you will see
information that tells you the name of the program, name of the
program publisher and other valuable information.
For example, you may find the file type, size and location, and then
by clicking the "Version" tab, bring up a description, copyright
holder, original file name, version, company name and other tidbits.
Second, and I have found this VERY handy, is to open the questioned
file in notepad. I have a shortcut to notepad in my "Send To" right
click menu just for this use. You can make a standard shortcut from
notepad.exe in your Windows directory and paste it into your
Windows/Sendto directory to avail yourself of this functionality.
Often, there will be plain text information inthe file that will offer
many clues to the file content and use. If the file is too large for
notepad, which has a 64KB limit, you will be asked if you wish to use
wordpad which will work on much larger files.
And last, I will use quickview, which is an optional component of most
versions of Windows that can be added from the add/remove control
panel under the Windows Setup tab. There are also add-ons for this
available on the web. Search for "quikview".
With this, even a .dll file brings up an incredible wealth of
information on the file in question.
All that being said, some files are not meant to be "opened" by
themselves and are only useful when their associated program has been
opened and is in use. While a .doc file is commonly associated with
Microsoft Word or Wordpad and double clicking it will open one of
those applications, double clicking almost any (if not all) .dll files
will not open an application. Some of your questioned files will
undoubtedly, work this way.
What I have found is the following files can be parts of the following
applications. Should you wish to try, you can right click them, choose
"Open with..." and try any of the applications listed below that you
may have on your computer. This will create an association between the
file type (extension) and that program and you can choose to "Always
use this program to open this type of file" if it works, or uncheck
that option just to test.
.AUT AutoIt Script (automate any windows based task)
PocketWear Car Lease Kit Vehicle Data File (Pocket PC)
TLG Workplace CD Search File
Xitami Webserver Admin Password File (default.aut)
GPSMan-autoMapic File (moving-map real-time plotting)
Signwave Auto-Illustrator File
Descent Manager Mission File
Authentication File (various)
Interactive Pictures iPIX Format
.ABX WordPerfect Address Book File
.BAG PMMail Mail Index File
OS/2 Netfinity Manager Sysinfo File (adapter.bag)
AOL Instant Messenger File
Emperor: Battle for Dune Archive [Dragon UnPACKer]
I could find no .abi file, but perhaps it could be .ab"L" as i and l
in lower case can often look the same:
.ABL Maxagrid Avails Data File (text format)
and .ARL AOL Organizer File [AOL]
I hope this has been informative for you.
-=clouseau-ga=- |
