Downloaded Areaditor for a look, and it changed all my .are files

I downloaded The editor as I had been asked to revnum to avoid a conflict.
The editor wouldnt open the files needed (and very few of the stock rom areas either)
So I decided to delete it from My system and use winword to edit them .
To find ever single .are file had been converted to areaeditor files and as I had removed the program it couldnt find the exe
I decided to redownload to reget the exe to see if that would help and i still cant open my original.are files am I missing something here ? I know at no time did I ask for a programme that renames all my files to something i can no longer use if i do not have the Areaeditor.
any help would be appreciated.

Select any .are file. then hold SHIFT and right click on that selected file, then choose OPEN WITH.

scroll down till you find what you want to open the file with, you said winword right? well look for windword, then select it. there should be a check box at the bottom of the little window. check it, it should say something like "always open this file type with this program blah blah" then just click ok, and you should be good to go.

It hasn't changed the files, it only "registered" the file type in the Windows Registry. Most programs do that, for example Word registers .doc files so that when you double-click them Windows knows to open Word.

You can do what Xzzy suggested, or, start Winword and then use "open" to open the file (you might have to put *.are in the file name box for the files to appear).

A more permanent solution is to go to any "My Computer" window, or "Explorer" window (ie. the windows showing all your files and folders), go to the View menu, select Options, click on the "File Types" tab, and then scroll down until you see "Area Editor Document" in the list of Registered File Types. Click on that line to select it, and then click on "Remove". That will unregister the file type.

Then, next time you double-click on an area file a box will pop up asking which program to use to open it, and you can choose Winword, Notepad, or whatever. That will then re-register it with the program of your choice.



Until it is registered it won't open most stock ROM areas because the built-in defaults (for skills etc.) are really geared around SMAUG areas. If you register the Area Editor then you can choose the ROM configuration file, and then it should open stock ROM areas, and work properly.