Multiple Issues with No$GBA, VBA, and Computer

[BFett]

I'm playing Fire Red in No$GBA and it works great, for the most part.

Unfortunately, GameFreak decided that a some of Pokemon shouldn't be obtained outside of events, so I've been trying to use No$GBA's cheat engine to have encounters with the Action Replay system. However, it never works, no matter what variation of the stuff I try. What I want is to get the Aurora Ticket and the Mystic Ticket as well as make them work (apparently you need another code, which I put in as a cheat but which doesn't do anything)...all I get is either ?????? items or a Aurora Tickets which then sit in my Key Items but do nothing.

I decided to try VBA, but I have no idea how to properly convert the save files into ones that work with VBA. I tried a tool someone made but the support for it is next to nonexistent, and there is no No$GBA.ini file to modify.

Lastly, I opened a .SAV file in Notepad and now the computer (system is Windows 7) ALWAYS opens it in notepad. I've searched the web for how to fix this but none of the things suggested worked. Now I can't rename the extension, which means that I can't create a .SV2 file for linking and trading on No$GBA.

My programs:
No$GBA
VBAlink

Any help with any of these issues would be appreciated.