Audacity beta won't appear as program in "Open With" - Win7

[butch52]

This is driving me crazy! I have Windows7 on a new desktop - I've used the old version of audacity on it with relatively few problems (occasionally crashes when I try to "record" in an existing project). However, I wanted to try the beta version because of some of the new bells and whistles (like better noise removal). The beta version installs and runs fine in that I can open it, import files into it - however, when I go to a wav file and click "open with", audacity isn't listed as a program option. Yes, I've tried the browse button, found audacity in Program Files, clicked open, clicked ok, but then nothing happens. I uninstalled beta, reinstalled the old version of audacity, went to a song file, clicked "open with" and right there was "audacity" as an "open with" program option. With the beta version I can click "open with" on an audacity file, and it offers audacity as an "open with" option - this just seems to be an issue with the beta version. Oddly, I had the beta version on the Win7 machine several months ago and it was working, but since I had the old version on an XP machine and sometimes wanted to move files from one to other, I deleted beta on the Win7 machine and just used the old audacity on both. Anyway, does anybody have a clue on how to force Win7 to recognize audacity in the "open with" dialog box????? I've also tried installing the beta version in the same place as the other program options that appear in the "open with" box (C:ProgramData), making sure it was in the start list, but it doesn't help.
Thanks.

[ignatz]

Two things you did not mention:

If you right click a wave and choose "open with", do you see a choice for "choose default program"? If so , pursue that.

Or:

go to the start box search, type in "file associations".

choose "make a file type always open in a specific program". Scroll down to wav and set Audacity as your choice if that is what you want.

I think you can also choose "change the file type associated with a file extension" and arrive at the same result.

I'm guessing those will fail or aren't what you want--in which case you can resort to registry hacks. Google suggests many possibilities, none of which I have had to use.

[steve]

The problem is due to a limitation in Windows that prevents setting up an association if there is a second program with the same file name (audacity.exe)
You may be able to get round it with this tool: http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/C ... 78704.html
Alternatively, change the name of one of the audacity.exe files and then try to set up the file association in the normal way ("open with" ....)

[butch52]

I must not have made the issue clear: the problem is that audacity BETA is not being populated in the "open with" list as an option. The OLD version does automatically populate the "open with" list. Please note - I don't want wav files automatically opened by audacity beta as the default (since I more often want media player to open them) - I just want audacity BETA listed as an option when I'm doing sound editing for a radio show, just as the OLD audacity is listed as an option when I right click "open with" on a wav file. But even if wanted to have BETA as a default, or just wanted to associate it with a wav file , the problem remains the same - it doesn't show up as a program option, and "browse", selecting, and "OK" doesn't do anything.

Stevethefiddler - I don't have both versions of audacity on the machine at the same time, so it's not an issue of conflict between two programs with the same exe file name. When I have the OLD version of audacity installed, it automatically is populated in the "open with" list as an option (it's like the second or third option on a right click - no need to search for it). When I uninstall the OLD version, and install audacity BETA, the beta version installs and works, except that it won't populate the "open with" list. So when I right click on a wav file, it's not an option, and even clicking "browse", finding audacity in Program Files, selecting it, and clicking OK, does not work.

Having spent two hours last night on the net looking for similar problems, I found out this is not uncommon - several people complained of programs not showing up on the "open with" list that they needed for a file, and browsing, selecting and clicking OK did nothing. On responder said this:
This problem is due to the fact that the program has not registered itself on
installation. A program typically registers itself on installation
by means of a new entry in the system registry
. It is possible to manually include registry entries provided you know what and where.

Since the old version of audacity immediately appears as an "open with" option, it sounds like maybe this guy is right - BETA is not registering itself on installation - but I'm not enough of a geek to know how to work around that. Does somebody on the audaciaty BETA team know if the program registering on installation on Windows 7 has been an issue??
Any other suggestions would be appreciated!!

[butch52]

A SOLUTION!! I found this small (36kb) free utility published by Microsoft MVP (most valuable professional - he's listed on the microsoft mvp website) Ramesh Srinivasan - it's called "OpenWithAdd" - it worked! And apparently it IS a failure of audacity BETA to register on installation (the OpenWithAdd utility said "program registered" when I ran it for audacity beta). If you don't know the full program file name, OpenWithAdd has a browse feature. Once you find the program you want included in the "open with" list, select the program, click OK, and it will register it and it will show up on your "open with" list. There is clearly a shortcoming in Windows (Win7, Vista and XP) judging from all the forum posts of people who can't get a particular program listed in the "open with" dialog box even after browsing, finding and selecting it - the Windows browse feature is, in other words, not fully functional. Or else, particular program installations are not fully functional in that they are not properly registering the program upon installation. Anyway, here's the link if you ever need to use the utility to add a particular program to the "open with" list:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/openwithadd.htm

[ignatz]

Thanks for that Butch.

I don't use right click to get at Audacity, but I discovered I could not choose Audacity when right-clicking an mp3. Now, I can.

Now, I have to find the way to do the opposite---remove unwanted choices from that right click menu. I think I have seen some apps that can do that, so we'll see.

[dmahoney]

I was able to solve this by uninstalling both the old version of Audacity I had, as well as my recently installed copy of 1.3.12. When I re-installed 1.3.12 on a fresh machine without any other copies of Audacity already present, the file associate issue corrected itself.