'Open with..' - what an awful design!

Neil wrote:

On 10/6/2016 3:38 PM, Mayayana wrote:
"Neil" wrote

| The top-listed programs in the "open with..." dialogue *will* work with
| the file types, because they have registered themselves properly so
| they're known to do so. Any other choice is executed at the users' risk.
| The OP's problem is that he keeps trying to use apps don't register
| themselves properly, and is frustrated by the consequences.
|
| Now, there is room for discussion about "proper registration" under
| Win10! ;-)
|

Indeed. Registering of supported file types
is not a typical feature of installers. One
can't assume that the list of ideas Windows
comes up with is exhaustive or even relevant.

Fortunately, that has never been the case, ergo, "Open with..."

In many cases registered support is not relevant,
anyway. For instance, I often open HTML files
and script files with Notepad, while opening PDFs,
CABs, or images with a hex editor, for various
reasons. I open images in PSP when I want to edit
them, but PSP hasn't registered any supported
types list. Personally I don't see a problem there.
Open With... is mostly for useful people who know
what they're doing and don't need Windows to
tell them. But I'm inclined to agree with Terry.
XP gives me a list of commonly used programs.
I'd much rather see that than a short list of
corporate programs that are registered to handle
the extension.

It is not reasonable to expect the limited, restrictive operations and
related UI of an OS that is 4 versions old to be the status quo a decade
later. I'm not criticizing XP users...I'm running Win2k on machines that
are more efficient at doing specific high-end tasks than newer options.
But, I don't expect to see the Win2k UI on a modern machine.

Nor would I and I don't think I implied otherwise ;-)
But some useful functionality in XP *has* been lost in Win 10 and IMO
this is one of them.

But in the superuser forum I've now learnt how to fix it. For anyone
else ending up here with a similar requirement, here's what I did in
this particular case:

In regedit I navigated to the key:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\gpsu525.exe]

I then added two new strings with the following values
'ApplicationCompany' with the value 'A S Murphy'
'FriendlyAppName' with the value 'GPS Utility'
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...OpenWith-4.jpg

On right clicking a GPX file I now see the list includes GPSU:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...OpenWith-3.jpg

I was surprised that there are so many programs without a
FriendlyAppName entry and am curious to know why?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

"Terry Pinnell" wrote

| But in the superuser forum I've now learnt how to fix it. For anyone
| else ending up here with a similar requirement, here's what I did in
| this particular case:
|
| In regedit I navigated to the key:
| [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\gpsu525.exe]
|
| I then added two new strings with the following values
| 'ApplicationCompany' with the value 'A S Murphy'
| 'FriendlyAppName' with the value 'GPS Utility'
| https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...OpenWith-4.jpg
|
| I was surprised that there are so many programs without a
| FriendlyAppName entry and am curious to know why?

The only ones I have are VLC Media player and Irfan
View. Most software I have is not even listed in
HKCR\Applications. None of the Microsoft programs have
a "FriendlyAppName". Most are empty keys. Or the only
value is "NoopenWith", apparently having a listing only
to tell windows to *not* add them to the Open with...
window.
I think the whole idea is fairly new. The key has existed
for a long time, but it's not much used. It's not a standard
item for software installers to deal with. Nor is there really
any reason. The situation of people wanting to choose
between a definitive list of all programs that claim to handle
a specific file extension is nearly non-existent. Anyone who
doesn't know what they want to use probably has no
understanding of file extensions in the first place.

On 10/7/2016 10:11 AM, Terry Pinnell wrote:
Neil wrote:

On 10/6/2016 3:38 PM, Mayayana wrote:
"Neil" wrote

| The top-listed programs in the "open with..." dialogue *will* work with
| the file types, because they have registered themselves properly so
| they're known to do so. Any other choice is executed at the users' risk.
| The OP's problem is that he keeps trying to use apps don't register
| themselves properly, and is frustrated by the consequences.
|
| Now, there is room for discussion about "proper registration" under
| Win10! ;-)
|

Indeed. Registering of supported file types
is not a typical feature of installers. One
can't assume that the list of ideas Windows
comes up with is exhaustive or even relevant.

Fortunately, that has never been the case, ergo, "Open with..."

In many cases registered support is not relevant,
anyway. For instance, I often open HTML files
and script files with Notepad, while opening PDFs,
CABs, or images with a hex editor, for various
reasons. I open images in PSP when I want to edit
them, but PSP hasn't registered any supported
types list. Personally I don't see a problem there.
Open With... is mostly for useful people who know
what they're doing and don't need Windows to
tell them. But I'm inclined to agree with Terry.
XP gives me a list of commonly used programs.
I'd much rather see that than a short list of
corporate programs that are registered to handle
the extension.

It is not reasonable to expect the limited, restrictive operations and
related UI of an OS that is 4 versions old to be the status quo a decade
later. I'm not criticizing XP users...I'm running Win2k on machines that
are more efficient at doing specific high-end tasks than newer options.
But, I don't expect to see the Win2k UI on a modern machine.

Nor would I and I don't think I implied otherwise ;-)
But some useful functionality in XP *has* been lost in Win 10 and IMO
this is one of them.

But in the superuser forum I've now learnt how to fix it. For anyone
else ending up here with a similar requirement, here's what I did in
this particular case:

In regedit I navigated to the key:
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\gpsu525.exe]

I then added two new strings with the following values
'ApplicationCompany' with the value 'A S Murphy'
'FriendlyAppName' with the value 'GPS Utility'
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...OpenWith-4.jpg

On right clicking a GPX file I now see the list includes GPSU:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...OpenWith-3.jpg

I was surprised that there are so many programs without a
FriendlyAppName entry and am curious to know why?

Whether those entries get made depends on the installer. In my
experience, installers have never implemented all of the functionality
built into Windows' UI.

--
Best regards,

Neil