The idea behind this is you are going to create an xml file, set it in the GPO and have the user relog for it to take affect.

First, make sure you have a config file that matches your needs.

I had a sever that I set the default applications, such as Adobe Reader for pdf files. Once I had all of the associations set that I wanted to push to the users, I created the xml file.

Creating the XML File

To create the file, run the command prompt with administrative privileges.

In this case, I’m going to place the file in the c:\profiles directory.

DISM /Online /Export-DefaultAppAssociations:appassoc.xml

This created a file with the following contents.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<DefaultAssociations>
  <Association Identifier=".acrobatsecuritysettings" ProgId="AcroExch.acrobatsecuritysettings" ApplicationName="Adobe Acrobat Reader DC" />
  <Association Identifier=".api" ProgId="AcroExch.Plugin" />
  <Association Identifier=".fdf" ProgId="AcroExch.FDFDoc" ApplicationName="Adobe Acrobat Reader DC" />
  <Association Identifier=".png" ProgId="IrfanView.jpg" ApplicationName="IrfanView 64-bit" />
  <Association Identifier=".jpg" ProgId="IrfanView.jpg" ApplicationName="IrfanView 64-bit" />
  <Association Identifier=".gif" ProgId="IrfanView.jpg" ApplicationName="IrfanView 64-bit" />
  <Association Identifier=".bmp" ProgId="IrfanView.jpg" ApplicationName="IrfanView 64-bit" />
  <Association Identifier=".pdf" ProgId="AcroExch.Document.DC" ApplicationName="Adobe Acrobat Reader DC" />
  <Association Identifier=".pdfxml" ProgId="AcroExch.pdfxml" ApplicationName="Adobe Acrobat Reader DC" />
  <Association Identifier=".secstore" ProgId="AcroExch.SecStore" />
  <Association Identifier=".txt" ProgId="txtfile" ApplicationName="Notepad" />
  <Association Identifier=".xdp" ProgId="AcroExch.XDPDoc" ApplicationName="Adobe Acrobat Reader DC" />
  <Association Identifier=".xfdf" ProgId="AcroExch.XFDFDoc" ApplicationName="Adobe Acrobat Reader DC" />
  <Association Identifier="http" ProgId="ChromeHTML" ApplicationName="Google Chrome" />
  <Association Identifier="https" ProgId="ChromeHTML" ApplicationName="Google Chrome" />
</DefaultAssociations>

I added a few more to catch what I was missing.

Local Group Policy Editor

Now that the xml file is created, we need to set up the GPO to utilize the file.

Computer Configuration – Administrative Templates – Windows Components – File Explorer

Edit the Set a default associations configuration file.

Point this to the location of your new xml file then click ok.

Have the user relog and that should take care of it.