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Monday, December 7, 2015

Right click 'Open With' Command missing - Windows 7


The "Open with" right click context menu only appears if you have ONLY ONE FILE selected. If you have TWO OR MORE files selected, then the right click context menu no longer contains "Open With".


I found a few ways to solve this problem:

  1. Use the "Send To" context menu instead
  2. Add "open with" for multiple files back to the registry using a .reg file
  3. Use a 3rd party program to manage these options (and more)

SOLUTION 1:

(from howtogeek)
Use the "Send To" context menu instead.
- This seems to be a quick and easy solution. I added a shortcut to Photoshop and it worked like "open with" used to.

Changing the Send To Shortcuts.To get to the SendTo folder, you’ll need to open up an Explorer window, and then paste in the following to the address bar.


shell:sendto
This is a special value that actually maps to the real folder, which is found in C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo
You should now see a bunch of shortcuts, which you can modify or delete as you see fit. Fax recipient? Really? Sounds like a good one to delete.
Windows_10

Adding Items to the Send To Menu

Let’s say you wanted to add an item to the Send To menu to open files in Notepad. You could just drag a shortcut to Notepad into this folder, or create a new shortcut. Now you can see the new Notepad item in the menu:
This method should work for any application that allows you to open a file by using a command line argument.
Original Article:

SOLUTION 2:
Add "open with" for multiple files back to the registry using a .reg file- I did not test this but from the links it appears to work great and be perfectly safe

1. Click Start, All Programs, Accesories, Notepad.
2. Copy and paste this text:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Open With]
@="{09799AFB-AD67-11d1-ABCD-00C04FC30936}"

3. Click File, Save As, name the file "OpenWith.reg" (WITH THE QUOTATION MARKS) and click OK.
4. Now double-click OpenWith.reg, click Continue, Yes, OK, and see if the problem is solved.
P.S: My personal advice is not to use ANY registry cleaner on the system.

Original Article:

SOLUTION 3:
Use a 3rd party program to manage these options (and more)

- I did not test this but from the links it appears to work great and be perfectly safe.
More advanced users might find these two Nirsoft utilities helpful too:
ShellMenuView
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shell_menu_view.html
ShellExView
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html