File Association: Program won't appear in main Open With list unless EXE is renamed

Question

I want to make it so that when I right-click a GIF File and hover over "Open With" Firefox will appear in that first sub-menu. Currently it only appears if I click "Open With" > "Choose another App" > "More Apps" and then scroll down halfway which is tedious!

Making Firefox temporarily the default program for GIF files and then re-assigning the previously default program to be the default does not make Firefox appear in the first "Open With" menu... unless I rename Firefox.exe to something else like Firefox1.exe for an example and then perform this action. Problem is renaming Firefox1.exe back to Firefox.exe removes Firefox from the first "Open With" menu so although the idea works, I'd like to keep the programs EXE file called Firefox.exe.

Deleting the association from the registry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts and then recreating the association with Firefox doesn't make it appear in the first "Open With" menu either.

Windows 10, 2004 & 2009.

Answer 1

@Nicholas Steel
Hi,

You would like for Firefox to be directly in the open with menu, right?

You could try Default Programs Editor.
Note: This is a third-party link and we do not have any guarantees on this website. And Microsoft does not make any guarantees about the content.

Don't click on "Context Menu" but rather on the option at the bottom - "Change'Open with' programs", You may need to restart your computer for changes to appear.

It turns out that the main reason for an application to become invisible in the open with menu is that it does not contain ApplicationCompany entry in the file information within the exe file.

This information is copied into the registry to the folder Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache.

For your reference:
https://superuser.com/questions/1199648/strange-open-with-list-inconsistent-with-registry/1256482#1256482
Please note: Information posted in the given link is hosted by a third party. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy and effectiveness of information.
Hope above information can help you.

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Answer 2

I believe I had to use the Delete Extension option in that 3rd party tool to fix the situation. Thank you.