Explorer Context Menu issues

In File Explorer, when I right click and choose Edit with XML Notepad, the file is opened in XML Notepad.

When I do the same in Directory Opus, I get the Windows "How do you want to open this file?" dialog, with the Keep using this app (Office XML Handler) and Other options sections. I'm just wondering why the different behavior?

Version 12.2 x64 Build 6138, 10/21/2016 8:44:18 am

That is sometimes caused by incomplete registry data for the filetype being double-clicked. If it is that then it's usually a simple fix.

Please install Opus 12.2.6 (beta) and then use Settings > File Types, then in the window which appears use File > Diagnostic. Enter XML as the extension and it will create a zip file with the relevant registry data.

(The same diagnostic tool is also there in Opus 12.2.0, but may not work reliably after the Windows 10 Anniversary Update is installed. The newer betas fixed that after we discovered it was broken.)

Alternatively, if you'd rather not install a beta version of Opus, you can use the standalone FileTypeDiag to generate a similar diagnostic file in .txt format, with a bit less detail.

Please then email the file to leo@gpsoft.com.au and I'll see if I can tell what's wrong and what to do to fix it.

Thanks for sending the diagnostic file!

Before anything else, see if using View > File Associations... within XmlNotepad, then assigning XML from the dialog that appears, fixes things by itself.


That may be enough to re-write the missing registry values.

If that doesn't work, please download this zip file and extract the .reg file, then double-click it. That will add the values which it looks like are missing from your registry, based on the diagnostic file.

xmlnotepad_reg.zip (604 Bytes)

For reference, this is what's in the .reg file:

[code]Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications]
"XmlNotepad"="Software\Microsoft\XmlNotepad\Capabilities"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\XmlNotepad]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\XmlNotepad\Capabilities]
"ApplicationName"="XmlNotepad"
"ApplicationDescription"="A simple XML editor with XSD intellisense and XSLTpreview"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\XmlNotepad\Capabilities\FileAssociations]
".xml"="XmlNotepad"
".xslt"="XmlNotepad"
".xsd"="XmlNotepad"
".xsl"="XmlNotepad"
".xdr"="XmlNotepad"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\XmlNotepad]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\XmlNotepad\shell]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\XmlNotepad\shell\edit]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\XmlNotepad\shell\edit\command]
@=""C:\Program Files (x86)\XML Notepad 2007\XmlNotepad.exe" %1"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\XmlNotepad\shell\open]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\XmlNotepad\shell\open\command]
@=""C:\Program Files (x86)\XML Notepad 2007\XmlNotepad.exe" %1"

[/code]

Thanks, Leo. Why does the context menu in File Explorer work even without the registry fixes?

Explorer may be a bit more forgiving about missing information in some cases (and Opus may in others).

Unfortunately, the exact details of what Explorer does are not documented, so we can't make both do exactly the same thing, but they should both work as long as nothing is missing from the registry.