Windows 10: How to open apps without start menu? Otherwise what's wrong with my laptop?

When I try opening some of the apps e.g. WhatsApp, Microsoft Solitaire, Mail, an error message pops up saying "class not registered". I also tried opening display settings and another one popped up saying "this file does not have an app associated with it for performing this action. Please install an app or, if one is already installed, create an association in the default apps settings page." The Start menu won't open either, but nothing happens when I click on the icon or the key. If it's useful though, recently just before the issue actually I installed the Unity program or something

:)

 

Can I customize the list of suggest apps in the "Open with" menu?

You can't use it to add additional programs, only to set default programs.

Interestingly for me it shows nothing for text files:








Then if I want to add a portable app like Jarte Plus to open with context menu windows doesn't like it.





It's not present and is near impossible to add even via "look for an app on this PC"

OpenWithAdd to the rescue:




Result:

 

Can I customize the list of suggest apps in the "Open with" menu?

Well, I hope this helps the OP - it took a while. I tried 'Default Program Editor' (DPE) and it did indeed add (or remove) items, but when I tried to specifically add Word to pdf opening, it failed - it went through the motions, but nothing happened. So I started again, playing with settings for opening .doc files. This seemed to work: initially in explorer I had 3 programs appear in the 'default' list that pops up on a rt-click>open-with:



and this is what the relevant bit of the Registry showed:



Don't ask me why just 3 of those 8 (a to h) programs show up (maybe the 'instant' list is limited to three? - no, see later) - anyway, I used DPE to remove Wordpad from the list: when saving the edit as a REG file, this is what I got:

Code:

and the result in Explorer was:



and the registry now shows:



Note how item 'g' from the list has been removed (it seems there is no issue with having a letter missing). I then messed about trying to open a .doc file with various other programs, and they all started to appear in the 'instant' list:




So I thought 'well, that is easy - just open a pdf once in Word and it should appear'. So back to trying to open PDFs: but however many times I tried, Word would never appear.



even though there were any number of entries in the Registry 'Open With' list, including Word:



So what did DPE make of this - well, it showed some of the entries:



Although Word is shown, it doesn't appear on a rt-click. Its entry can be removed, but that doesn't help. So my attention was drawn to the existence of another folder below 'OpenWithList', namely 'OpenWithProgids', and that contained a specific ref to Sumatra (my preferred program for PDFs). Looking back at the same entry for .docx, I found this:



so I added an identical Word.Document.12 ref to the list for PDFs:



I think IrfanView is there as it got added during my experiments! I now get this in Explorer:


Hurrah! I then tried to use DPE to remove the redundant entries, and got this as a .REG file:
Code:

But when i merge that with the registry, the IrfanView item does not get deleted:



and as seen in the registry:



so I deleted it by hand, and at last have the entries I (or rather, the OP) want:




Note that my manually added reg entry is of type Binary', as there seems to be no way to add a value of type 'None'.

So it seems that DPE cannot cope with entries in the 'Progids' list, and something makes some programs fall into that list, rather than the 'openwithlist'. I am sorry for any typos above, or pictures in the wrong place - can't be bothered to check it too thoroughly. Hope it helps someone!

atb, Martin

 

Can I customize the list of suggest apps in the "Open with" menu?

Yep, I see the same.

I tried adding Paint to Open With for txt. That also appeared in the More Options list.

I suspect it's to do with what the programs are registered to handle. The Open With list is constructed form a number of sources e.g. at least these:



The first of those corresponds to Snip & Sketch (simply search and find refs to the Appx string)