opening a cpp file

[Gary Wessle]

Hi
I am trying to open a .cpp file, it opens it with an external viewer  

MR Buffer           Size  Mode         File
 -- ------           ----  ----         ----
.*  *scratch*           0  Lisp Interaction 
 *  *Messages*       1721  Fundamental  
 *  *ESS*             182  Fundamental  
 *  *extview log*     489  Fundamental  

how can I open it normally with the cpp mode?

in my .emacs I have 
****************************************************************
(setq auto-mode-alist
  (append '(
    ("configure.in" . m4-mode)
    ("\\.m4\\'" . m4-mode)
    ("\\.am\\'" . makefile-mode)
    ("\\.cpp\\'" . c++-mode)
    ("\\.h$" . c++-mode)
    ("\\.py\\'" . python-mode))
   auto-mode-alist))
****************************************************************

thanks