Where's "Open With" in Win 7?

[Kenny]

In XP if I highlight a file, hold Shift and right click I have "Open With"
in the context menu.
It's not there in Win 7, is this by design or is it only my PC.
Replies appreciated.

 

[Peter Taylor]

In XP if I highlight a file, hold Shift and right click I have "Open With"
in the context menu.
It's not there in Win 7, is this by design or is it only my PC.
Replies appreciated.

Try just right clicking without the shift.

 

[Ken Blake]

In XP if I highlight a file, hold Shift and right click I have "Open With"
in the context menu.
It's not there in Win 7, is this by design or is it only my PC.
Replies appreciated.

It *is* there in Windows 7. The only difference is that although you
can still hold down the Shift key, it's not necessary.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Try just right clicking without the shift.

I only tried one file (a txt file) and Open With appeared regardless of the
shift key...

So Kenny either has a real problem, or he's looking at files that don't
have an Open With entry. If there is such a thing...

As an experiment, I just looked at a weird file, xxx.baes (I have
completely forgotten what that's about, if I ever knew!). It has an "Open
With HxD" (that's a hex editor that I installed), but it has no generic
"Open with..." entry. Maybe that corroborates my guess. Also, the shift key
doesn't matter.

 

[GlowingBlueMist]

I only tried one file (a txt file) and Open With appeared regardless of the
shift key...

So Kenny either has a real problem, or he's looking at files that don't
have an Open With entry. If there is such a thing...

As an experiment, I just looked at a weird file, xxx.baes (I have
completely forgotten what that's about, if I ever knew!). It has an "Open
With HxD" (that's a hex editor that I installed), but it has no generic
"Open with..." entry. Maybe that corroborates my guess. Also, the shift key
doesn't matter.

Running Win7 Pro here. For what it's worth I tried a handful of
different file types and it appears that only application programs did
not have the "Open With" option. Possibly other file types may not have
the option but then again I did not look "real" hard for them.

DLL, TXT, MP3 and any other file types that I tried a right-click of the
mouse did bring up the "Open With" choice.

 

[Kenny]

Thanks for the replies, the problem was of my own making.
Gene seems to have hit it saying I was trying to open a file which had no
"Open With".
Had previously used Notepad to open NFO files but this particular NFO file
had a tilde (~) after it which seems to have been the problem.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Thanks for the replies, the problem was of my own making.
Gene seems to have hit it saying I was trying to open a file which had no
"Open With".
Had previously used Notepad to open NFO files but this particular NFO file
had a tilde (~) after it which seems to have been the problem.

Glad to help. As you could see, I wasn't totally sure myself until I ran an
experiment...

Tildes are one of the ways some programs mark a backup file - instead of
renaming x.yyy to x.bak, they use x.yyy~.

I often do that or similar things manually, such as to rename problem.exe
to problem.xex or problem.!exe so that I don't accidentally run it

 

[JD]

Glad to help. As you could see, I wasn't totally sure myself until I ran an
experiment...

Tildes are one of the ways some programs mark a backup file - instead of
renaming x.yyy to x.bak, they use x.yyy~.

I often do that or similar things manually, such as to rename problem.exe
to problem.xex or problem.!exe so that I don't accidentally run it

I am new to Win7 and have had problems with files that have the
extension chopped off. I clicked at the left end of the taskbar and a
window opened up. I typed in 'file extension' and several choices were
offered. The one I liked best was: 'Show or Hide File Extension'
Clicking that one opened a window called Folder Options. It opened at
the View tab and I found a box checked at Hide Extensions for Known File
Types. I unchecked it. Now I should always have the file extension visible.

 

[undisclosed]

I only tried one file (a txt file) and Open With appeared regardless o
the
shift key...

So Kenny either has a real problem, or he's looking at files tha
don't
have an Open With entry. If there is such a thing...

As an experiment, I just looked at a weird file, xxx.baes (I have
completely forgotten what that's about, if I ever knew!). It has a
"Open
With HxD" (that's a hex editor that I installed), but it has n
generic
"Open with..." entry. Maybe that corroborates my guess. Also, the shif
key
doesn't matter.

Very interesting issue Kenny. I'm not sure why you would see differen
results with these two operating systems, however if your version o
Windows 7 is Professional, then there's a feature called Windows X
Mode. It opens apps in a window that looks like Windows XP, with th
performance speed of Windows 7 Pro. You can get a video demo of how i
works at 'Microsoft Showcase: Windows 7 Professional: Run Windows X
applications' (http://bit.ly/Win7ProXPMode). If you'd rather go to
page that also has text, 'Windows for Small Business: Windows XP Mode
(http://bit.ly/WinXPMode) has some of the same info as the first lin
plus the download if you need it and an FAQ (click the "Get Answers
button under "Windows XP questions?" heading on the bottom right). Thi
text and video page has detailed video instructions on downloading an
installing Windows XP Mode, plus installing the apps you want to run
Hope this helps. Andrea H. Windows 7 Professional Outreach Tea

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Very interesting issue Kenny. I'm not sure why you would see different
results with these two operating systems, however if your version of
Windows 7 is Professional, then there's a feature called Windows XP
Mode. It opens apps in a window that looks like Windows XP, with the
performance speed of Windows 7 Pro. You can get a video demo of how it
works at 'Microsoft Showcase: Windows 7 Professional: Run Windows XP
applications' (http://bit.ly/Win7ProXPMode). If you'd rather go to a
page that also has text, 'Windows for Small Business: Windows XP Mode'
(http://bit.ly/WinXPMode) has some of the same info as the first link
plus the download if you need it and an FAQ (click the "Get Answers"
button under "Windows XP questions?" heading on the bottom right). This
text and video page has detailed video instructions on downloading and
installing Windows XP Mode, plus installing the apps you want to run.
Hope this helps. Andrea H. Windows 7 Professional Outreach Team

Uh - I'm not Kenny...