The path in the “Target” box is what you’ll need to copy into the Registry string. You can find your favorite app’s installed location by right-clicking on its shortcut and choosing Properties. We can change this entry to point to any compatible application we want by double-clicking the registry string to open it, and replacing the path inside the first set of parentheses in the “Value data” box.Ĭontinuing our example, we’ll change the path to point to our local installation of Photoshop CC 2015, which by default is located at C:Program FilesAdobeAdobe Photoshop CC 2015Photoshop.exe.
This tells Windows to launch MS Paint when the user selects the “Edit” option after right-clicking on an image file. Once you’ve arrived at the “command” key, you’ll see a single string on the right side of the window with the value “%systemroot%system32mspaint.exe” “%1”.
The list is alphabetical, so you can scroll through it if you like, but you can also use the Registry search feature (located at Edit > Find) to quickly locate the proper key. Note that some of these folders, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT in particular, contain many hundreds of entries. In the Registry Editor, use the folder hierarchy on the left to navigate to the following location: ComputerHKEY_CLASSES_ROOTSystemFileAssociationsimageshelleditcommand To get started, launch the Windows Registry Editor by searching for “regedit” from the Start Menu or Start Screen (Windows Vista through Windows 10) or by going to Start > Run and typing “regedit” (Windows XP). Therefore, please be careful when making these changes, and make sure you have robust backups of all important data before you proceed. We’ll walk you through the process for changing the application used for the “Edit” option, but be advised that making other changes in your Registry may cause permanent damage to your Windows installation, and even your data. The answer is to change the application that’s launched when the “Edit” option is selected, but to do this, you’ll need to dive pretty deep into the Windows Registry.īefore we continue, make sure you’re familiar with the Registry and the basics for modifying it. Thankfully, there’s a workaround, and this time the solution might be as perfect as we can get.
But, again, this isn’t a perfect solution because using the “Edit” option in the right-click menu opens the selected images in MS Paint, which is far from the preferred image editing software of most users. The “Edit” option is always available no matter how many image files are selected, even those with different file types.
There’s one solution, however, and that’s the “Edit” option in the right-click menu. For some inexplicable reason, Microsoft forbids users from easily opening files in a non-default application when any more than a single file is selected, including selections of multiple files that all share the same file type. Sounds easy, right? Well, there’s just one little problem: the “Open With” menu isn’t available when a user selects multiple files. Instead of setting Photoshop as the default app for all image file types, which would greatly impede our ability to quickly view the images, we can simply right-click on the desired image file and choose Open With > Adobe Photoshop. But when it’s time to actually edit an image, we prefer to use Adobe Photoshop. This lets us quickly view images without launching more advanced software.
In the screenshot above, our Windows 10 PC is configured to open image files by default in the new universal Windows “Photos” app. By right-clicking on a file and selecting “Open With,” the user can temporarily bypass the default application and open the file with any compatible program.Īs an example, consider images. Rather than change the default application for the file type, which is often not what the user wants, or manually launch the non-default app and open the file by hand, Windows includes a useful “Open With” option in the right-click menu. But many users will want to occassionally open certain files with an application other than the one that is set as the default for that file type. Like all modern operating systems, Windows lets users set the default application that will open each file type.
How to Use the Windows Right-Click 'Edit' to Launch Photoshop Instead of MS Paint