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[Solution]The issue has been resolved. I ran the 'Advanced Renamer' program as suggested, and changed the file type of my make file from make to make.mak. Then after the program was done I removed the extension and it showed as type File. From then on, every extensionless file that I create has that type.

Recently my system (Windows 7) had become infected by some Adware. I removed its entries in the registry and deleted the relevant files in my Program Files and ProgramData folders. A few days later I was working on a coding project when I noticed my make file had a type that was the name of the adware program.

Here is an image of my make file in a folder: enter image description here

I'm pretty sure that the adware is not active anymore. However, I'm not sure how I can change the file type of an extensionless file. How can I change the type back to the generic 'File' descriptor?

[Edit] I have attempted to use the suggested answers in the thread linked but HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Type was not present in my directory. I then tried to create a new key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\..

This did not change the file assosiation back to 'File' unfortunately. So I removed the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\. key, but it didn't change the association either.

[Edit 2] To clarify on the extension: The image shown is already showing the file extension. That is to say, there is no file extension. I have the hide file extensions for known file types unchecked in the image and my make file has no extension. All extensionless files will show the file type 'AulleCheapPrice.'

Maleous
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1 Answers1

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First of all, it's a good idea to verify that your PC is free of viruses and malware. It's always best to do a virus scan from an environment other than windows. To achieve this you can download an antivirus boot disk or scan the hard drive from another computer. Once you are satisfied that your PC is free and clean proceed to the following:

Next you need to determine if the virus has arbitrarily changed random files to that AulleCheapPrice extension or has it changed all the same extensions. Do this by searching your c drive for AulleCheapPrice. You may need to unhide extensions for known file types to achieve this.

Go to:
Organize - > Folder and Search Options -> View tab -> uncheck "hide extensions for known file types"

Once you are able to populate a list of all the files that have been changed to .AulleCheapPrice, you can then try to determine if they are all the same type of file. If they are you can batch change them back to what they are supposed to be with Advanced Renamer.

If the files aren't all the same extension, unfortunately you will have to endure the painstaking job of manually changing them back to what they were before. There is software available to aid you in this called TRid. It reads the binary data of the file and cross references it with a database to find its most common extension.

Sources:
http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-change-file-extension/
How do I find out the file type without an extension?

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