Does anyone know how to make Audacity one of the options I see when I right-click on an audio file in Windows Explorer and select “Open with”?
When trying to do that by first time, you have to use the “choose program” option:
Right click → Open with → Choose default program
(The words used in your Win 10 for this action may be a bit different form the translation I did from my Spanish Win 8.1)
Once you did it at first, it should appear on the list from now.
NOTE: Uncheck the option that will make Audacity to be default, that way it will appear on the list but wont be default (unless you want it to be).
This option you may uncheck will appear on top of the list of programs that will be shown as option. This list is not the same list you already have in the “Open with” list.
That worked. I had tried it before, but missed a step. The correct procedure is:
- Right-click the audio file.
- Select “Choose another app”.
- Scroll down to “More apps” This is the step I missed. The morons at M$FT couldn’t make the dialog one line larger or put a permanent indicator that there are more options below. The scroll bar is not visible unless you hover over it and it disappears after a few seconds.
- But Audacity is still not in the new longer list. So you need to scroll down farther and select “Look for another app on this PC”.
- That opens up an Explorer window on the Program Files folder. But Audacity is not listed there either.
- Now you have to scroll down in the Left panel to the “Program Files (x86)” folder. Selecting that, Audacity will be listed and can be selected.
- Thereafter, it will be in the main list.
How come Audacity does not install itself in the main Program Files folder?
Currently Audacity for Windows is a 32-bit program, (even though now most computers are 64-bit).
“x86” = 32-bit programs.
Yes, I guess my questions should have been, “Why is there not a 64-bit version of Audacity?”. Is it a big deal to make that conversion?
Because we have thousands of 32-bit Windows users and we’re not ready to abandon them yet. Switching to 64-bit builds offers only a very little benefit for 64-bit Windows users (most will not notice the difference), but it would have a very big impact on 32-bit Windows users (32-bit apps cannot run on 64-bit systems). We are not a major corporation, we’re a small group of volunteers and our resources are limited.
Sorry, I didn’t realize it was so difficult to convert 32-bit software to 64-bit. Audacity is a really good program. My thanks to the team. I only submit suggestions and observations to make it better.
It’s not difficult - in fact we have alpha 64-bit versions of the upcoming 3.0.0 (and I have tested them).
As Steve said to you, we are a very small group of volunteers and not a major corporation and we therefore cannot support both 32-bit Audacity and 64-bit Audacity on Windows (we do not have the manpower) - and we are not prepared to abandon our Windows users who still run on 32-bit hardware, of whom there are many around the world particularly in poorer geographies.
WC