File Conversions - Need help!

I see no reason for any "conversions" so if you are a programmer take time to learn the lingo.
Bob

It needs to be said, and despite what some will undoubtedly think, I'm not saying it with any intent of malice or ill will.

If you are lacking what I would consider to be among the basics of the basics, you really should reconsider programming. At least until you've significantly expanded your basic computer knowledge. There's the saying that you need to learn to walk before you can learn to run, but in this case you haven't even mastered crawling yet.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to take up programming if you're interested, but for the time being you need to set that aside and spend more time just learning how computers and computer software works. You can use these forums as a good measuring stick. When you are able to start answering questions, or at least aren't left completely befuddled by the question, then you can start thinking about getting back to programming if you're still interested.

Programming is a lot of hard work and it's typically a thankless job. Much like a janitor, if you do your job well, no one even knows you did it, but they will not hesitate to complain often and loudly if you're somehow lax. You have to be able to anticipate every single stupid thing users of your software could possibly do, and try to account for them in your code. You'll invariably fail, because someone will always come up with something you never anticipated, but it won't stop them from blaming you. I wrote/maintain a couple of small macros for the people I work with and they involve collecting various bits of information and then generating a series of email shells based on those answers. At one point I ask very specifically for a NUMBER that we use to keep track of all the changes we make. Anyone who works with SAP will know what an ECM is. I anticipated people using the 5-digit shorthand we use internally and convert that out to the full 12-digit format, but what I didn't anticipate initially (since I explicitly asked for them to enter in a NUMBER) was that someone would put "ECM12345" into the box instead of just "12345". So one of my coworkers was asking me why my program was broken and eventually we whittled it down to how she was trying to use the program in a way I didn't anticipate. Now I have it so if they try and enter anything other than a number they get an annoying error message and can't proceed, but things like that will always happen no matter what. So without some level of skill in basic troubleshooting, you'll be at a serious disadvantage when trying to debug your code.

Tl;Dr version: Set aside being a programmer for now and focus on building up your basic computer skills. Then you can go back to programming if you're still interested.

you are the user. What you choose to use to open a file has no effect on what the system will do when it calls that same file from a program. For instance, I can have and do have all *.bat files associated with notepad. That by no means stops it from being an executable if run in a command box. Reason is because the system has one set of rules for files and you the user are setting file associations that only pertain to you.