FIX: Open with menu option is missing in Windows 10

• Users report that the Open with option is missing from the context menu without any warning or obvious reason.
• We will explore in this article what steps you can do in order to solve this issue, so keep reading.
• Bookmark our Windows 10 Hub for more helpful guides and news.
• Check out our dedicated Fix section for more related information.

If you want to open a certain file with a different program, usually you’ll right-click that file and choose the Open with from the menu.

Many users use the Open with menu on their PC, but sometimes this menu can become missing.

Users reported the following problems:

• Windows 10 Open with not working – This is a strange problem, but you should be able to fix it by keeping your Windows up to date.
• Open with disabled windows 10 –If you’re having this problem, you might have to tweak your registry in order to fix it.
• Windows 10 Open with greyed out – This can be a big problem, but you should be able to fix that by creating a new user account.
• Open with missing from the context menu, right-click – If you’re having this problem, be sure to try some of our solutions.

How can I fix the Open with menu missing in Windows 10?

1. Check your antivirus

An antivirus is a crucial component of every PC because it provides you with protection from online threats.

However, sometimes your antivirus can interfere with Windows and that can cause the Open with menu to become missing.

If you’re having this problem, we advise you to temporarily disable your antivirus and check if that solves the issue.

Now, if that doesn’t help, you might have to uninstall your antivirus. If removing your antivirus solves the problem, you’ll need to switch to a different antivirus solution.

There are many great antivirus tools available on the market, but currently, the best antivirus applications is Bitdefender.

There are many great selling points to why you should use it, and some of them are its excellent protection against viruses and the use of minimal PC resources, although constantly running in the background.

Bitdefender has made a name for itself due to it’s enhanced security and deep scan options that stop any threats even before becoming an issue.

How does the OS know what to do with a file when the “Open With…” option is selected?

Explanation: I don’t remember about Linux and I don’t know about OS X, but in Windows you can right-click a file and select a program to open it. But how does the OS know exactly how to make the program open it? Does it keep track of the «Open file» dialogs the program has? Does the developer have to specify a special event handler or something for these cases?

6 Answers 6

The operating system runs the specified program sending as parameter the path of the file to open.

For example, in C#, if you want to know which file the operating system wants you to open you’ll need to do:

For Windows, the answer is in the registry. If you’re comfortable reading the registry, run regedit.exe on your Windows machine.

Under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, you will see a key list of all file types, .doc, .txt, etc. Each of these keys contains a key called «OpenWithList» or «OpenWithProgIds». An application may have a registered «ProgId», also found under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and it can register it’s ProgId to the file types it wants to handle in OpenWithProgIds. Otherwise it registers itself in OpenWithList.

In response to the comment to the first answer (cos I don’t have enough rep to comment):

You’re thinking of DDE, which is a near-enough deprecated technology. The Windows shell executes the application with the selected file as the first parameter.

Форум

Справочник

window.open

Синтаксис

Аргументы

Описание, примеры

Метод open создает новое окно браузера , аналогично команде «Новое окно» в меню браузера. Обычно это не вкладка, а именно новое окно, но в некоторых браузерах можно настроить то или иное поведение явным образом.

Если параметр strUrl — пустая строка, то в окно будет загружен пустой ресурс about:blank.

В любом случае, загрузка осуществляется асинхронно. Создается пустое окно, загрузка ресурса в которое начнется уже после завершения исполнения текущего блока кода.

Связь между окнами

Метод open возвращает ссылку на новое окно, которая служит для обращения к нему и вызову его методов, если это соответствует ограничениям безопасности Same Origin.

Если окно с именем winName уже существует, то вместо открытия нового окна, strUrl загружается в существующее, ссылка на которое возвращается. При этом строка параметров не применяется.

В случае, когда окно открыть не удалось, например, оно заблокировано штатными Popup-blocker’ами Firefox/IE — вызов open вернет null.
Проверяйте его, если не хотите лишних ошибок в своих скриптах.

Указание пустого strUrl для существующего имени окна — удобный способ получить ссылку на это окно без его перезагрузки.

Если вы хотите открывать новое окно при каждом вызове open() — используйте для winName специальное значение ‘_blank’.

Строка параметров

Необязательная строка параметров состоит из списка разделенных запятой настроек нового окна. После открытия окна их уже нельзя будет изменить.

Если строки параметров нет или она пустая, то для нового окна будут взяты параметры по умолчанию.

Если строка параметров указана, то не перечисленные в ней параметры будут отключены(кроме titlebar/close). Поэтому включите в ней свойства, которые нужны.

Если в параметрах не указаны размеры, то новое окно будет по размеру такое же, как последнее открытое.

Если не указана позиция нового окна, то оно откроется со сдвигом в 20-30 пикселей (зависит от браузера) от последнего открытого окна.
Такой сдвиг позволяет посетителю заметить, что открылось новое окно.
Если текущее окно максимизировано, то сдвига не будет: новое тоже будет максимизировано.

Основные кроссбраузерные параметры

Параметры, касающиеся элементов управления окна, могут быть жестко установлены в конфигурации браузера. В этом случае их указание в параметрах open() не даст нужного эффекта.

left/top Расстояние от левой/верхней границы окна операционной системы до границы нового окна. Новое окно не может быть создано за границами экрана height/width Высота/ширина в пикселях внутренности нового окна, включая полосы прокрутки, если они есть. Минимальное значение: 100 menubar Если этот параметр установлен в yes, то в новом окне будет меню. toolbar Если этот параметр установлен в yes, то в новом окне будет навигация (кнопки назад, вперед и т.п.) и панель вкладок location Если этот параметр установлен в yes, то в новом окне будет адресная строка directories Если этот параметр установлен в yes, то в новом окне будут закладки/избранное status Если этот параметр установлен в yes, то в новом окне будет строка состояния resizable Если этот параметр установлен в yes, то пользователь сможет изменить размеры нового окна. Рекомендуется всегда устанавливать этот параметр. scrollbars Если этот параметр установлен в yes, то новое окно при необходимости сможет показывать полосы прокрутки

How to remove Open With programs in Windows

Open With is a useful feature of the Windows operating system that allows you to open files with different programs from Explorer.

While you can map a file type such as zip to a program so that it gets opened whenever you double-click on a file of that type, you can also right-click on files and select open with to launch the file in a different program.

Windows opens an «open with» menu when you double-click on files that have no default program associated with them so that you may pick a suitable program from the list that is provided.

Sometimes, you may notice that old or unwanted programs are on the list; this happened to me the other day. I installed a new software to open archives to update a review and removed the program after I finished testing it. While the program was removed from the Windows 10 machine, the open with and «how do you want to open this» menus still listed it as one of the options. Selection did not do anything because the program was not installed anymore, and it was presented in a prominent spot on top of that.

Remove Open With programs on Windows

Windows users have two main options when it comes to dealing with unneeded items in the Open With menu or adding new items to it:

1. Manipulate listings directly in the Windows Registry.
2. Use third-party programs for that instead.

Direct manipulation has the advantage that you don’t need to run third-party software to make the changes; the disadvantage is that it is not as easy and straightforward as what some of the third-party programs that edit Open With data offer.

Using the Registry

Using the Registry to remove Open With items from Windows is relatively easy.

Note: Since you are deleting keys and values in the Registry you may want to create a backup first before you do so. Select File > Export in the Registry Editor to back up the selected key and data.

1. Open the Start Menu, type regedit.exe, and select the result to load the Registry Editor.
2. Confirm the UAC prompt that is displayed.
3. Go to the root key Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\

The key lists all known file types in alphabetical order.

1. Click on the file extension that you want to edit the open with programs for.
2. Select the «OpenWithList» key to list all available entries.

You delete any item listed on the page by right-clicking on it and selecting delete from the context menu. You are asked to confirm the deletion and need to select yes to delete the selected value from the Registry.

All that is left to do is repeat the process for any other program or file type that you want to remove items from.

The changes should be visible right away in the right-click open with menu in Explorer. A restart is not required.

Using third-party software

Several applications have been created over the years to make the editing of the Open With menu more comfortable.

OpenWithView by Nirsoft (all Windows versions)

OpenWithView is a free program for all versions of Windows that lists all applications that you may find listed under the Open With menu in Windows Explorer.

Apart from listing those apps, it allows you to disable them if you don’t need them so that they are not shown in the menu anymore from that moment on.

To disable an entry select it with the mouse and right-click afterwards. There you find the option to disable it to block it from being listed in the Open With menu. You may also use the shortcut F8 to disable entries and F7 to enable them if you prefer to use the keyboard.

OpenWithView does not offer granular controls but it lets you remove an application from any menu it may be displayed in directly.

Open With Enhanced (Windows 7 and older)

OpenWith Enhanced improves the Windows Open With dialog. Once installed, it turns the Open With dialog into a more user friendly version.

The program uses a program association database that is constantly updated to suggest applications that can be used to open the selected file in the Windows operating system.

Installed programs are displayed with different backgrounds than programs that are not installed. A click on a program that is suggested but not installed will open the program’s home page on the Internet from where it can be downloaded to the local PC.

That’s handy for users who have no idea which program they need to open a specific file type, and users who would like to try out alternatives to programs already available on the system.

The program options are displayed with a click on Settings. Here it is possible to change the application backgrounds and label colors, the way programs are displayed in the Open With dialog, the sending of anonymous usage statistics and if the program should check for updates regularly.

Another interesting option is the ability to remove file associations for users on the system, and to remove Open With menu entries in Windows Explorer to clean up the context menu of Window’s native file management tool.

Lastly, a click on «look for the appropriate program on the Web» opens the OpenWith Enhanced database on the Internet.

Open Expert (Windows XP and earlier)

Open Expert is probably the best application to configure the available applications for the Open With dialog for each file type in Windows. A list is populated with all Open With programs after selecting a file type from the list of available extensions.

Each program in the list can be rearranged in position or removed from the list completely. Alternatively new programs can be added from the hard drive. Open Expert is easy to use and the results are immediately visible.

Easily open your graphic files in your favorite paint programs or view your HTML files in either Netscape or Internet Explorer, just with a few mouse clicks. You can even add different versions of the same program to the OpenExpert menu.

The screenshot below shows how it works: Right-click your file, point to «Open with» and then just click on the program which should open the file. That’s how easy it is!

Please note that the program is only compatible with Windows XP and earlier versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. The program is free for personal use.