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The longest place name is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturi-pukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu - it's in New Zealand
Microsoft knows nothing about Itunes files
WHILE THE Redmond juggernaut, Microsoft, is spending another $486 million on a web search firm, we found that the software giant's on-line file extensions database cannot find its way out of a paper bag.
Windows XP has a feature to help users find more about file extensions not currently associated with any program on a given system. So when you click on a file with a filename extension unknown to the system, it looks up the file extension on-line at shell.Windows.com so the user learns what program should be used to open it. But, quite predictably, we found Microsoft doesn't seem to be very interested in updating this list of filename extensions. For instance, it knows nothing about DRM-protected files downloaded from Itunes, which are played by Apple's Quicktime player.
Suppose someone sends you a file with an extension that your system isn't configured to handle, like it happened to us recently with a file with a "m4v" extension. In such instances, a dialogue pops up that reads, "To open this file, Windows needs to know what program created it. Windows can go online too look it up automatically, or you can manually select from a list". This service is dubbed "Windows File Association" and usually works for the most common file extensions. Of course, all Microsoft file formats are there, including the most common non-Microsoft ones, like .Mov or .Rar.
You can see here and here that it correctly identifies MOV and QT files as Quicktime and directs you to the Apple.com URL to download the required player. It also recognizes RAR, TIFF and points to the appropriate applications.
".MP4 ? What's that??" Says Windows....
What is really puzzling, to say the least, is that this on-line database leaves a lot to be desired and fails to bring any results for other increasingly common non-Microsoft extensions like .mp4, .xvid, .divx, Vorbis (.ogg), and .m4v DRM protected files from Itunes. These are not rare file extensions, you can find these indexed and described at third party sites and file extension databases like File-Extensions.org, FilExt.com and FileInfo.net.
Third party web sites do a much better
job at keeping track of file
extensions...
So, why do all these third-party web sites know what .M4v or Ogg files are and Microsoft's on-line extensions helper is clueless? INQuiring minds want to know. Perhaps - just perhaps - Ballmer and Co. should spend some money to buy a decent on-line file extensions database? µ
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I could just see it: Microsoft updates its extensions database and then other companies sue them for unfair competition by being a "kingmaker" in choosing the application for a specific extension. RAR and MOV files are different in that they've nearly always been associated with specific apps. However, imagine Microsoft decides to choose its own media player over some other media player application? Those EU regulation morons would be all over it.

Microsoft is no doubt just covering its butt and not providing free advertising for competitors. They already had to list competing search engines for its in-browser search bar.
Be sure to let me know when iToons & your iPod let you play .wma & .wmv files .


Well spotted, does vista use the same service? then it's even more embarrassing because vista is meant for the clueless after all.
Oh I'm pretty sure they know all about it.....

However it's not an MS format so they are not going to make things easy for the customer.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly why Creative has dropped all but WAV and WMA support from the recording/editing software they ship with their sound cards...

OH THAT'S right MP3 also isn't an MS format...
So what is it? A buyout? or More sinister.. Want your drivers certified? drop the other formats. 

If they have to buy an extension database they are more clueless than I thought!
Nice find, apparently it doesn't like flac either.
Linux = its free, it works.

Windows = a square peg for a round hole.
The extent to which people go out of the way to blame microsoft for non-issues borders on moronic.

They also have not a clue what a .torrent file type is unless you have a app installed that handles them.

People get mad when Mcrosoft includes built in apps and claim monopoly but in the same breath complain that a .mp4 file is not know to their OSs by default?

Beyond that it is a non-issue, if you have the codecs needed to play a h.264 file even if its extension is listed as .mov it will still play in WMP the same as quicktime or VLC.

Hell it is reasonable they don't have it as a known file-type considering they support their own VC-1 form of mpeg4 vs h.264/mpeg4-avc.

Also just like with Ogg files, the codecs are free and readily available for download.

Next are we gonna see articles claming Microsoft doesn't support Youtube or .flv because you have to download flash before they will work?

I'd be a hell of a lot more likely to blame hp/dell/acer...etc for not pre-loading the most popular plugin out there in a pc than expect Microsoft to do a OEM's job for them.

And in the event you bought windows for a self built pc, you are your own OEM and expected to know what you are doing because Microsoft is not responsible to provide support for OEM copies and insteads refers you to your "pc maker", that is why a OEM copy costs less.

Isn't that reasonable? Is this really a issue worthy of comment?

I could see if it were some type of .net foul-up or a silverlight bug rendering a entire site useless, but not a 3rd party file-type that functions perfectly well if you need it to.

They go as far to include IE so you don't need another PC to download Firefox with uppon a clean install of their OS.
Pointing to specific applications might be dangerous for some file types as previously mentioned, but they could at least tell you what it is like the rest of the worlds 'file' command.

But your examples of xvid and divx aren't really valid, most often such extentions are used for avi containers with xvid/divx compressed mpeg4 video, and should have the file extention of avi. Not detecting incorrect extentions is a feature, not a bug. :)
Microsoft is clueless in many ways. 
In the Linux world we know a file's mimetype even though we might not have the application to open it.
Yhis way you can name a jpeg and exe and it will correctly see it as jpeg regardless of extensions.
In the microsoft world extensions make the filetype. Why is this a bad idea? Read up on mail attachment type obfuscation if you really want an answer to that.
Just think of the previous discussion on the format 'war' on the official ISO standard of a word processor document - this company dictates the world what it wants, not vice versa. 

A company is not a democracy.