Adding Open With a Program

When we are coding there are times when we have to open multiple editors, in my case often to reference codes, and it is usually faster to open the editor from the folder rather than using the 'open' menu on the editors—however, for the editors that provide an option to whether to add the functionality or not when installing such as the Visual Studio, many people reluctantly reinstall the program to have that functionality if they forgot to do so in the first time. In this posting, we will see how we can add it without having to reinstall the program in Windows.

Opening the Registry

First, we need to open the registry. You can either right-click 'the start icon' and click 'Run'

or press Window + R

 

Enter the command below in the opened search bar

regedit

Adding a Directory

After Registry Editor is opened, scroll down and find 'Directory' -> 'shell'

Adding a Key

Right-click 'shell' -> then click 'New' -> 'Key'

Enter the key name

Right-click 'Default' -> 'Modify'

Enter the title that will show next to the program menu icon

Adding a Command

Create a key under the key we just created and name it 'command'

Go to the program execution file (.exe) you want to link and copy the path. For example, for the IntelliJ, the path is like below

C:\Program Files\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 2021.3\bin\idea64.exe

Right-click 'Default' -> 'Modify'

<excutionFilePath> "%V"

Adding an Icon

Right-click the key to add an icon -> click 'New' -> 'Expandable String Value'. Then right-click again and change the name to 'icon'

Copy the path

Right-click 'Default' -> 'Modify'

When completed we can run the program using the newly added menu as shown below

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References

Open a project in IntelliJ from the folder - Stack Overflow

Open a project in IntelliJ from folder