"Open With" always opens notepad

[sarahnice]

Hi all,

Whenever I right-click on a file and select "Open with..", I get no dialog box to choose the application I want, the file automatically opens with notepad.

Any ideas?

 

[bcastner]

You can use Doug Knoz's little fix to redo your File Association information:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_easy_file.htm

For an issue with an individual file type: Control Panel, Folder Options, File Types, scroll down to the file extension you are having issue with and click "Change".

Uncheck the box to always use the defined program to open that type of file, or change the program choice.

 

[sarahnice]

I tried the fix and also checked the file associations in Control Panel. The file associations are fine. If I double-click an icon, the correct program opens. If I right-click and go to the "Open with..." context menu and select one of the programs in the list, again the correct program.

However, if I double-click, go to the "Open with..." context menu and then go to the "Choose program..." option, the file will open with notepad, regardless of the file extension, and I do NOT get a list of programs to choose from.

All file associations seem to be fine. The only time there is a problem is with the "Choose program..." option in the "Open with..." context menu. This happens for every kind of file I have tried so far.

 

[gpalmer711]

open Notepad, Copy the code below into notepad, save the file as regfix.reg (Make sure that you set the file type box to all files in Notepad

Double click on this file and it will make sure that the registry entries for "open with" are correct.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Open With]
@="{09799AFB-AD67-11d1-ABCD-00C04FC30936}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{09799AFB-AD67-11d1-ABCD-00C04FC30936}]
@="Open With Context Menu Handler"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{09799AFB-AD67-11d1-ABCD-00C04FC30936}\InProcServer32]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
  00,5c,00,73,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,53,00,48,00,\
  45,00,4c,00,4c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,00,00
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{09799AFB-AD67-11d1-ABCD-00C04FC30936}\shellex]
@=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{09799AFB-AD67-11d1-ABCD-00C04FC30936}\shellex\MayChangeDefaultMenu]
@=""

If this does not work then you could try running this command from the Start > Run menu option

sfc /scannow

This will check your core system files for corruption or missing files and replace them where required.



Greg Palmer
Free Software for Adminstrators

http://www.palmersoft.co.uk

 

[bcastner]

This might do it:

Start, Run, regsvr32 /i shell32.dll

 

[sarahnice]

Sorry for long delay. I was using CustomizerXP which had an option set to open all unknown files with notepad. I unchecked that option and all is good again.