Okay, I have a question regarding Vista (my laptop has the basic version only) and I guess now I think of it, I'm sort of asking this question as it might apply to XP Professional too (my desktop still has this).

Is it possible to associate files? So let me give an example of what I mean. Totally hypothetical example here

Let's say that I want a fresh Notepad to open every time I click on Internet Explorer. So what I want is to click on the IE icon and have both it and notepad open, rather than have to click on two icons. I've been taking a look at batch files as a possible solution i.e. click on a .bat file on my desktop that is written to include instructions to open both IE and Notepad. For example:-

Quote:
start /max iexplore.exe
start /max notepad.exe


That's easy enough of course but I'm wondering whether there's another solution where I can associate the opening of one file with another. Any thoughts?

Sounds like a batch file will be your best option for now. Unless you have a lot of other scripting experience. But the batch file will be easiest Just put the full path to each program on separate lines.
c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
c:\Windows\notepad.exe

Do this in notepad when you save the file
Chose SAVE AS
"IE-Notepad.bat"
Include the " marks so that it does not name the file IE-Notepad.bat.txt
Save it to your desktop