Adding context menu entries in Win 7

October 21, 2012 7:57 PM

In Win7, how do you associate an app with a file type without making it the default "open" tool for that app?

I know how that was done under XP, but the XP mechanism is gone now.

Something strange happened to me today and Windows forgot all the tool assignments for SWF files. I have it set again so that "open" runs the stand-alone flash player program from Adobe. But I want an additional entry in the right-click context menu to invoke FlashDigger.

I can do that by uninstalling and reinstalling Flashdigger, but that seems extreme. I could delve into the registry, but that's way beyond extreme. Is there a more straightforward way of doing it?

posted by Chocolate Pickle to computers & internet (7 answers total)

Right click the file, choose "open with", choose "choose default program", select Flashdigger, and make sure to uncheck the box that says "always use the selected program to open this type of file." Flashdigger should show up in the "open with" options from now on, but the default will still be the the Adobe program.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:04 PM on October 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

If you don't see "Open With".. SHIFT + Right Click the file, there will be more options.
posted by mattdini at 8:12 PM on October 21, 2012

Strangely enough, my file associations just came back. I'll be damned if I know why.

Having Flashdigger in the "open with" popup wasn't what I wanted. What I was looking for was how to make Flashdigger appear in the right-click context menu itself.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:08 PM on October 21, 2012

Any program you run via Open With->Choose Program will indeed get added to the right-click menu for files of the type you're working with. If you make sure the "always use the selected program" box is not checked before allowing that program to run, this will happen without altering the default (double-click) program for that file type.
posted by flabdablet at 12:56 AM on October 22, 2012

Having Flashdigger in the "open with" popup wasn't what I wanted. What I was looking for was how to make Flashdigger appear in the right-click context menu itself.

Assuming FlashDigger doesn't have a setting to do this itself, then you need to poke around in the registry to add a new context menu item for the SWF file extension.

It's pretty easy if you're au fait with the registry and where the app is located.

Shout if you have any problems.
posted by mr_silver at 5:20 AM on October 22, 2012

When I right-click a flash file, "Open with..." is not a choice. Shift-right-click doesn't alter this.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 5:31 AM on October 22, 2012

Adding additional actions to the main context menu used to be a lot easier to do in XP, but is still possible. Aside from using a 3rd party tool, you could accomplish this using regedit. Here are some instructions on how it's done. Instead of picking * you'll want to instead pick the flash filetype for FlashDigger to open. You'll also want to keep the "%1" parameter at the end as that will represent the file name being passed to the flashdigger application (consult help if flashdigger needs additional switches to open a file from cmdline).

Be sure to create a restore point before you begin if you feel uncomfortable using regedit. If you're unsure of the file type, you could first look in CLASSES_ROOT for the file extension. When you select it, the filetype will be visible as the default string (ab). From there, look in CLASSES_ROOT for the filetype and you'll find the "shell" subkey where you can add additional actions per the linked instructions above.
posted by samsara at 9:16 AM on October 22, 2012