Add a program to the «open with» list

How To Edit Or Remove Items From The Right Click Menu.
http://www.winvistaclub.com/e11.html

The ShellExView utility displays the details of shell extensions installed on your computer, and allows you to easily disable and enable each shell extension.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

ShellMenuView is a small utility that display the list of static menu items that appeared in the context menu when you right-click a file/folder on Windows Explorer, and allows you to easily disable unwanted menu items.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shell_menu_view.html

Hope this helps.
Rob — Bicycle — Mark Twain said it right.

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Have followed answer by «Brian» to similar post to get Office to open .doc with Word, but Word does not show up in the «open with» dialong box..the other Office programs do. How do I get Word to show up in the «open with» box.
The thread that lists an answer to this question results in a Page Not Found

Do you have Microsoft Office Word in your system ?
Assuming you do, follow this.
Right click your doc file > Open With > Choose Default Program >Other Programs, click the pointer on the far right > do you see MS Office Word now? If yes, click it, Then click OK.

If you do NOT have Microsoft Office Word, then, you need to installed a FREE program called Microsoft Word Viewer.
Here is the link to download Word Viewer :
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3657CE88-7CFA-457A-9AEC-F4F827F20CAC&displaylang=en

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How to Add a Program to «Open With»-Menu in Windows 10

If I right-click on a file in the explorer windows, I get an menu including the «Open with»-option. Some standard programs are listed there. If i click «Choose another app», I will find the one I need. However, the Open With menu doesn’t remember it for the future — I always have to go to «Choose another app».

How can I add it to the Open With menu, so i don’t have to click «Choose another app»?

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When you are in that ‘Open With’ menu, at the bottom, is there an ‘Always use this app to open xxx’ option that you can tick?

If so, tick that, it should set that file association and also add that app to the default list for opening that type of file . .

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My name is Andre Da Costa; an Independent Consultant, Windows Insider MVP and Windows & Devices for IT MVP. I’m here to help you with your problem.

Here is an example of how to make permanent. For this example, I am using a WordPad RTF file. Your can point to the desired file you are using then follow the same steps.

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Thank you for your answer!

I’m afraid I didn’t ask my question exactly enough. I don’t want to change the associated app permanently, I just wan’t to get another option in the «Open with»-menu!

Example: I want to open my .avi files with vlc video player, so this is my standard app for this file extension. But sometimes (!), I like to do other things with .avi-files, like cutting them with an cutting app. I would like to have this app in the

«Open with» menu without having to go through the «Choose another app» list. Opening it once with this app doesn’t do the job.

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Thank you for your answer!

I’m afraid I didn’t ask my question exactly enough. I don’t want to change the associated app permanently, I just wan’t to get another option in the «Open with»-menu!

Example: I want to open my .avi files with vlc video player, so this is my standard app for this file extension. But sometimes (!), I like to do other things with .avi-files, like cutting them with an cutting app. I would like to have this app in the

«Open with» menu without having to go through the «Choose another app» list. Opening it once with this app doesn’t do the job.

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FIX: Open with menu option is missing in Windows 10

• Users report that the Open with option is missing from the context menu without any warning or obvious reason.
• We will explore in this article what steps you can do in order to solve this issue, so keep reading.
• Bookmark our Windows 10 Hub for more helpful guides and news.
• Check out our dedicated Fix section for more related information.

If you want to open a certain file with a different program, usually you’ll right-click that file and choose the Open with from the menu.

Many users use the Open with menu on their PC, but sometimes this menu can become missing.

Users reported the following problems:

• Windows 10 Open with not working – This is a strange problem, but you should be able to fix it by keeping your Windows up to date.
• Open with disabled windows 10 –If you’re having this problem, you might have to tweak your registry in order to fix it.
• Windows 10 Open with greyed out – This can be a big problem, but you should be able to fix that by creating a new user account.
• Open with missing from the context menu, right-click – If you’re having this problem, be sure to try some of our solutions.

How can I fix the Open with menu missing in Windows 10?

1. Check your antivirus

An antivirus is a crucial component of every PC because it provides you with protection from online threats.

However, sometimes your antivirus can interfere with Windows and that can cause the Open with menu to become missing.

If you’re having this problem, we advise you to temporarily disable your antivirus and check if that solves the issue.

Now, if that doesn’t help, you might have to uninstall your antivirus. If removing your antivirus solves the problem, you’ll need to switch to a different antivirus solution.

There are many great antivirus tools available on the market, but currently, the best antivirus applications is Bitdefender.

There are many great selling points to why you should use it, and some of them are its excellent protection against viruses and the use of minimal PC resources, although constantly running in the background.

Bitdefender has made a name for itself due to it’s enhanced security and deep scan options that stop any threats even before becoming an issue.

Set Default Programs — can I add programs to the list?

I’m using the Set Default Programs item from the Default Programs control panel item to set the default associations for certain file types (you get a list of possible associations for the selected program from which you can tick whichever associations you want).

However, the list seems rather short compared to all the programs I have installed and somewhat arbitary, for example Outlook 2007 appears in the list but Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote 2007 do not. Equally I have Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 installed but this doesn’t appear in the list of available programs; I’d like to associate it with the file types it can open. I can’t seem to find a ‘Browse’ option to select new programs, is there a way to add them to the list?

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Two conditions must be met for a program to appear in that list:

1) The program must have registered itself as being capable of handling at least one file type

2) At least one other program must have registered itself of being capable of handling at least one of those same file type(s).

If a program is the only present program capable of handling a specific file type (such as .PPT for PowerPoint files), that program will not appear in the list because there is no alternative.

If this solves your issue, click the ‘Propose as Answer’ link below, and vote as helpful by clicking the green triangle to the lelft. Thanks!

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Am I understanding this correctly . you can not have 1 program and set it as a default for the action peticular to that program, you must have 2 programs or more before an auto default can be set?

My problem is clicking on files in incoming emails which have a pdf format. I have Adobe but it is not listed in the default programs listing to set it as a default. I can save the pdf file and then click it to open or open Adobe and ‘open’ the saved file. But it will not open a sent attachment until after it has been saved to a folder.

How do I get Adobe into the default list. There are other programs which open pdf on my computer.

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Adobe doesn’t register their software handler with Windows, so you’d have to do it from this page instead:

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That’s certainly a problem. I have a few ideas to try instead. I’ll start with what I hope is the quickest and easiest.

Right-click an Adobe PDF files, point to the Open With> flyout menu, then choose «Choose Program». Browse for that Adobe EXE file in your program files.

If that has the same issue or doesn’t work, I’d start by doing a System File Check. This is pretty easy (just type a command and wait), but unfortunately if the issue is an invalid registry setting, this command specifically will not correct it. Troubleshooting registry issues is more complex, but file association settings aren’t too terrible. I’ll await your findings before we dig into that.

To run a System File Check:

1 — In your Start menu search box, type cmd and then press Ctrl-Shift-Enter. You’ll be prompted for permission to run the command prompt as an administrator, please allow it.

2 — At the command prompt, type sfc /scannow and then press Enter. This will take some time as it checks system files. When it’s done, reboot and try again.

Editing the “Open with” menu in Windows 10

I use PDF Split & Merge (PDF SAM) frequently, but don’t want to set it as the default PDF handler.

When I right-click on a PDF and select Open with, these are the options I am given. To select PDF SAM I must click Choose another app and select PDF SAM there.

I would like for PDF SAM to be directly in the Open with menu.

I have looked over these questions for help:

I have modified the registry to set PDF SAM as the 2nd option in the OpenWithList:

But this does not appear to actually change anything.

I would be happy if Chrome, Edge, and Waterfox were simply not on that list of programs in the Open with menu, and I assume this would free up enough room for PDF SAM to graduate to the main list, but only Waterfox shows in the OpenWithList in the registry, and removing it does not appear to make any difference.

Update 1

Following the suggestions in the question linked in the comments (Manually Add Program to Open With in Windows 10) I tried DefaultProgramEditor and it failed utterly.

Then I opened the registry to HKCR.pdf\OpenWithProgids and removed the Waterfox entry from there, and this indeed removed Waterfox from the Open with list, but it did not add PDFSAM to that main list:

Registry:

Open with menu:

So, we’ve figured out how to remove unwanted entries from the primary list, but not how to add wanted entries to it.

And checked to make sure that PDF SAM has both entries suggested by the answer there, and it does:

Update 2

A little bit after upgrading Windows 10 to build 1809 I noted PDF SAM is now showing in the Open With menu.

I have not tested yet to confirm that Microsoft has resolved this issue or if something else broke loose. Once I’ve confirmed this though, I’ll write up an answer.

5 Answers 5

For anyone that still has this problem, the solution would be going to

and add a new string containing the format you want to open e.g. «.mp4»

I had the exact same problem when I couldn’t add Nitro Pro to the «Open with» Context Menu for *.pdf files. That’s on Win7, but it doesn’t look like if MS’ approach to the feature has changed between both Operating Systems.