Open with: program is not displayed

With a right click on a file you will find "Open with". But if the desired program is not displayed, you have to make improvements yourself. We'll show you how to edit this software preselection.

Open with: Add program to the list

1. Right-click on the desired file and move the mouse over the "Open with" item.
2. Select the item "Select another app" and click on "More apps".
3. If the desired program is still not visible, click on "Find another app on this PC".
4. Here you can now search for the file path of the program and select the associated EXE file.
5. Then confirm with "OK" and, if necessary, activate the offered option to always open the file type with this program.

Open with: Delete program from the list

In order to correct the selection entries under "Open with" and to remove unwanted alternatives, an intervention in the registry is necessary.

1. To do this, click on "Start" and enter the search term "regedit.exe" under "Search programs and files". Windows presents the hit list directly in the start menu.
2. Under "Programs", click "regedit.exe". In the left pane of the editor, navigate to the key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ FileExts".
3. Below this key you will find an additional key for each registered file type with the name of the relevant file type, for example ".txt" for text files. These keys each contain the key "OpenWithList", in which Windows manages the entries for "Open with" for the corresponding file type.
4. These are rows of letters named with a letter, in the values ​​of which are the names of the alternative applications. In addition, the "MRUList" value controls the order of the entries in the "Open with" menu.
5. To remove an entry from the "Open with" menu, simply right-click on the corresponding value and select the "Delete" context command. Confirm the following message.

In the next practical tip, we will show you how to properly uninstall programs under Windows.