VMware workstation tray icon starts notepad?

[JustMe02]

Whenever VMware Workstation 11 is running in the background and I double click the workstation tray icon - notepad opens rather than VWware workstation on the host.  The same happens if I right click and then select "Open VMware Workstation".  This was occurring prior to installing version 11.  I had hoped the new version/install would fix the problem.

Since installing version 11 - I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the application.  I have also tried uninstalling, running the install application with the "/clean" option and then reinstalling with restarts between each.  I also tried following the "Cleanup after incomplete installation on a Windows host guide" all with the same affect.

Any ideas?  Other then not being able to open VMware Workstation via the tray icon everything else is working great.

System:

Windows 8.1 Pro, 64bit

Duel Intel Xeon CPUs E5-2650 v2 - 32 cores

Duel NVIDIA Quadro K4000

64 GB DDR3 RAM

512 GB SSD System Drive - RAID 0

24 TB SAS - RAID 10

[JustMe02 · Accepted solution]

After digging through many areas I final found the resolution to this little problem.  The issue was that the file extension .VMX had been assigned to Notepad.  A quick reassignment in the Windows "Default Programs" settings and all is well.