# XP Q: Can't even FORCE app into "Open With" menu
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 23, 2007, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181 "2007-09-23T07:19:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2007, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/1 "2007-09-23T07:19:26Z")
This is driving me crazy!
I installed a new media editing program, but for whatever reason it did not show up in the “Open With” menu. No big deal, I know how to add an application to the “Open With” menu, but Windows just will NOT accept it, no matter what I do! I used the “Open With” -\> “Choose Program” then browsed to the app in question, clicked “Open”, but Windows completely ignored me and did nothing. I tried this many times without success (though it worked correctly right from the start on my other XP machine). I tried un-installing it then re-installing it, but it made no difference.
So I went into RegEdit to look at key:
HKEY\_CURRENT\_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts.mpg\OpenWithList
and found that the app in question (vstudio.exe) was already present there and it’s entry was also in the MRU list.
What’s going on? How can I fix this?
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2007, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/2 "2007-09-23T07:32:12Z")
As a temporary work-around, I tried adding the app to the “Send To” menu. However, while the app does load and run, it will not open the associated file.
I tried adding a “%1” to the launch string, but that didn’t work either.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2007, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/3 "2007-09-23T10:25:26Z")
Okay, I’ve made some progress, but I’m still having a problem.
What I did was to uninstall the app, then I edited the registry to remove all traces of vstudio.exe, then I reinstalled it again.
Now it appears in the “open with” menu correctly and when I click on a media file and perform an “open with”, the correct app opens properly. However, I just cannot get it to open the media file in question! It just sits there with no file open.
Note that everything works fine on my other XP box.
Any suggestions?
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2007, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/4 "2007-09-23T13:23:13Z")
Can you play the file if you just drag it on to the application icon? Or from within the opened application?
If not, then it’s the application that’s at fault, not XP.
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### Author:  [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2007, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/5 "2007-09-23T13:25:25Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
Can you play the file if you just drag it on to the application icon? Or from within the opened application?
If not, then it’s the application that’s at fault, not XP.
[/QUOTE]
It’s possibly the application’s fault even if either of those methods work - it seems to me that the app won’t load from command-line parameters, which is what usually drives the open-with, doubleclicking, and sent-to methods.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2007, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/6 "2007-09-23T16:06:18Z")
What **chrisk** said.
All the shell interactions you’ve tried to configure ultimately just pass the file name (plus some other parameters) onto the command line for the program’s invocation. If the program isn’t payng attention to those parameters, it’ll open to its blank window every time.
Is this by any chance freeware/shareware? Sone of those authors are pretty good at the specifics of their program’s purpose, but real weak on the rest of what the pros call “Windows logo compatiblity”, ie playing nice with all 500 aspects of the Windows vs. user program interface, not just the obvious 3 or 4.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2007, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/7 "2007-09-24T02:28:31Z")
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
Can you play the file if you just drag it on to the application icon?
[/quote]
The application will load if I drag a media file to it’s icon, but the file doesn’t load.
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
Or from within the opened application?
[/quote]
Yes, if I drag a file onto the apps’ drag and drop area, the file will load correctly
[QUOTE=GuanoLad]
If not, then it’s the application that’s at fault, not XP.
[/QUOTE]
Not so, because as I indicated earlier, the exact same app installed the exact same way works perfectly on my other XP machine, so the problem isn’t the application itself. It’s got to be something not quite right in the interaction between XP and the app, such as improper registry entries or something.
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2007, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/8 "2007-09-24T02:52:20Z")
[QUOTE=chrisk]
It’s possibly the application’s fault even if either of those methods work - it seems to me that the app won’t load from command-line parameters, which is what usually drives the open-with, doubleclicking, and sent-to methods.
[/QUOTE]
But the app _will_ load from the command line, and via “open with”, and from double-clicking, and from the “Send To” menu. The app loads perfectly, it’s the media file in question that won’t be opened automatically by the app. And I’ve tried different files, too.
I even tried it explicitly from the “Run” menu: I put the app’s path, a space, then the file’s path, and although the app loaded fine, it still did not load the file. I also tried double-clicking a support file that has a permanent association with vstudio, and while that loaded vstudio, it again did not open the file.
While this certainly _looks_ like a problem with the app, how can we explain that the exact same app works perfectly on my second XP box?
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2007, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/9 "2007-09-24T02:56:13Z")
[QUOTE=LSLGuy]
What **chrisk** said.
All the shell interactions you’ve tried to configure ultimately just pass the file name (plus some other parameters) onto the command line for the program’s invocation. If the program isn’t payng attention to those parameters, it’ll open to its blank window every time.
[/quote]
By why does the exact same app work perfectly on my other machine?
[QUOTE=LSLGuy]
Is this by any chance freeware/shareware?
[/QUOTE]
No, this is an expensive commercial product of Ulead Systems, “Video StudioStudio 11 Plus”.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2007, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/10 "2007-09-24T14:11:23Z")
I missed the bit about it working OK on another machine. Sorry.
There are a couple more pathways into launching a file inside an app. Specifcally an older technology called DDE. Windows DDE is so rarely used anymore that it could be broken on your problem PC and you’d never notice a problem with the rest of your installed programs.
And if this one app happened to require DDE for file open, you’d be screwed.
I don’t have time to go into the details now, but will try over the next couple of days. Perhaps a call to Ulead tech support?
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### Author:  [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2007, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xp-q-cant-even-force-app-into-open-with-menu/420181/11 "2007-09-25T01:12:09Z")
Thank you very kindly for continuing to work on this with me!
So far, Ulead Tech Support hasn’t been helpful. But I’ll try to find out if VideoStudio uses DDE or not.
Thanks again.