What to do when "Open With..." doesn't work properly in the Windows context menu

So, you want to tell Windows to always open certain filetypes with a certain program. You right-click on a file in Windows explorer, and hover over "Open-With...". A list of applications pops up, but the program you want isn't on there. So you select "Choose default program...". You get a popup with a list of "Recommended programs", but the program you want isn't there either.


You hit "Browse", and find the .exe of your program yourself. So far so good. Now you hit "Open". Everything seems to work......but wait - the program you supposedly selected doesn't actually appear in the list, and double-clicking the file still opens it using the previous default program. Huh?

This happened to me when I tried to make Photoshop the default program for the file extensions JPG, PNG, or PSB. Have you had a similar problem? If so, I've got another question for you: the program you're trying to use - has it ever been updated or had its location changed? If so, you're probably in luck. Try the solution below.

• Download a little utility called Open With View (scroll down to the Download OpenWithView link).
• Extract the ZIP archive and run OpenWithView.exe
• Look for your desired program in the left column (in my case it was Photoshop.exe)
• Look over to the "Command Line" column and check the program location. Is it outdated or incorrect? (in my case it was C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC\Photoshop.exe, when it should have been C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2014\Photoshop.exe)
• Right-click the program and choose Disable selected items. Close the OpenWithView utility
• You can now go back to Windows Explorer and try changing the "open with..." settings again, with the usual method. It should work now
• reopen OpenWithView and right-click your program, then select Enable selected items

That worked a treat for me. I hope it worked for you.