See Also
PowerWorld Simulator can automatically open and load the contents of a project if the proper file associations have been made. When Simulator is installed on a computer, it registers the file extension *.pwp in the Windows registry. Then, whenever you double-click on an icon for a project file or download a project file from a web site, Simulator will start, extract the contents of the project file, and read them into memory. The power system will then be displayed exactly as the author of the project file intended it to be displayed.
If the file association is somehow destroyed (i.e. Windows no longer recognizes that *.pwp files should be associated with and opened by Simulator), you can re-establish the association manually using the following procedure:
- Windows 95/98/NT
- Open Windows Explorer.
- Select View > Folder Options from Windows Explorer’s main menu.
- Switch to the tab labeled "File Types."
- Click the button labeled "New Type."
- For "Description of Type," specify "PowerWorld Project."
- For "Associated Extension," specify "PWP".
- For "ContentType (MIME)," specify "application/powerworld_project."
- For "Default Extension," specify ".PWP".
- Under "Actions," click the button labeled "New."
- Specify the "Action" as "open."
- Specify the "Application used to perform action" as the path to the Simulator executable file, followed by a space and the string "%1" (including the quotation marks). For example, if the path of the PowerWorld Simulator executable is "c:\program files\PowerWorld\pwrworld.exe," then you should specify the following string:
c:\program files\PowerWorld\pwrworld.exe "%1" - Click OK to close the Action dialog.
- Click OK to complete the definition of the file association.
- Windows XP
- Open Windows Explorer
- Select Tools > Folder Options from Windows Explorer’s main menu.
- Switch to the tab labeled "File Types"
- Click the button labeled New
- For "File Extension", enter "PWP", then click OK.
- Find the PWP entry in the Registered file types list, then click on it.
- Next, with the PWP entry selected, click on Advanced.
- In the box to the left of the "Change Icon…" button, type in "PowerWorld Project"
- Click on the "New…" button on the right-hand side of this dialog, which will pop up a "New Action" dialog
- In the New Action dialog, click "Browse…"
- Navigate to and select the PowerWorld program binary (pwrworld.exe); the default location is c:\Program Files\PowerWorld\pwrworld.exe
- In the New Action dialog, enter "Open the project" in the field labeled "Action"
- Click OK in the New Action dialog and in the Edit File Type dialog
- Click Close when you are back to the main File Types dialog.
- For future Windows versions, refer to the Windows help on changing file type associations.
The *.pwp file type will now be recognized on your system as being associated with PowerWorld Simulator. Again, you will need to perform this procedure only if the association somehow gets removed.