Windows – Cannot create persistent “open with” association for Photoshop CS4

adobe-photoshopwindows-vista

I'm trying to fix a computer from a friend, which has for some unknonwn reason installed the 64bit and 32bit version of CS4. The 64bit version does not work, the 32bit does.

However it seems that the 64bit version was the first installed one, associations to the .psd files are going to the 64bit version.

There seems no way to create an association with only the 32bit version. When I select open with` and I browse to the 32bit version and select open, it does not get added to the list of applications?

Update:

Unfortunately the problem just went away. It's annoying as the root cause is likely never to be found, I'm accepting Fopedush's answer for this "detailness".

Best Answer

I experienced a similar problem with an XP box a few months ago. After clicking "open with", then browsing to the application I wanted to use, the application still failed to show up in the "Open with" menu. The cause may not have been the same, but here is what I had to do. Warning: if you are not comfortable manually editing the registry, this solution may not be for you.

Open the registry (regedit.exe) and browse to 

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications

Find the name of the program you are trying to use, e.g.:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications
    \Photoshop.exe

and browse to

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\Photoshop.exe
    \shell
        \Open
            \command

The "Data" value of the default key will be the path used to launch the executable when opening a file. For example, on my machine

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\EditPadLite.exe\shell\open\command

contains the value:

"C:\Program Files\JGsoft\EditPadLite\EditPadLite.exe" "%1".

In my case, the path was pointing to the wrong place, and I had to manually correct it. Afterwards, the "open with" dialog worked as expected. It may be the case that the path is pointing to the 64-bit executable for you, and redirecting it to the 32-bit exe might fix the problem. Make sure to back up this key before you make any changes!

I regret that I do not have photoshop on this machine so I cannot tell you exactly what the path will be, but hopefully it is similar to the one I showed. I hope this was helpful.

Related Question