When you want to control which file types an installed program should open/handle in Windows 7 (or Vista), one option is to go to the “Default Programs” via Control Panel or the Start menu, and then choose “Set your default programs”. Some programs, however, don’t show up in this list. This was the case for VLC media player on my PC.
If you want a quick fix for VLC, look at this other post. If you want to read in general about adding programs to the list in “Set your default programs”, read on:
This is probably more a nuisance than a problem, because you can attack the file association from the other side, by opening the settings for each file type one-at-a-time and associate it with the program (right-click file -> open with -> select program). However, this can be really time consuming and frustrating with a media player or any other program with more than 50 file type associations.
Therefore, it would be nice to use the “Set your default programs”-feature, where one can view all file types supported by a program, and associate some or all file types to the program with few clicks.
I’ll soon describe how to add missing programs to this list. First some screenshots to get the picture: 
Screen #1: Open this via Start -> Default Programs, and then click “Set your default programs” as indicated below:
Screen #2: Here is the program list, with VLC media player (or other program) missing:
Screen #3: Here is what we want, and how it looks after our fix:
The fix
This requires some familiarity with the Windows Registry (regedit). And NOTE: I take no responsibility for anything you do or don’t in relation to this fix or anything else on this blog. Be careful in the registry (mistakes can break your operative system), and remember it’s your own responsibility!
First some registry terms. In the regedit-editor: A key is displayed in left pane with a folder icon, a value is an item displayed as a line in right pane, while data is the data contained in the value. A “string value” is a value containing a string as data.
Now some todo-points (for more specifics, see example below):
- Fire up regedit.exe with Admin-privileges.
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\, and find as a key an equivalent to ProgramName (i.e. VLC) or VendorName\ProgramName (i.e. VideoLAN\VLC) under there.
- Add a key called ‘Capabilites’ under the ProgramName key.
- Add these three string values under Capabilities: ApplicationDescription, ApplicationName, ApplicationIcon. For contained data in these values, see example and apply imagination.
- Now, add a key called ‘FileAssociations’ under Capabilities. Under here, add string values referencing file type keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\ (see example).
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications, and add a string value called i.e. “VLC media player”, with data set to “Software\ProgramName\Capabilities”. Change ProgramName according to actual program name.
Example
As an example, here is the registry-export of my registry additions when I was finished fixing VLC media player:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VideoLAN\VLC\Capabilites]
"ApplicationDescription"="VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project. The default distribution of VLC includes a large number of free decoding and encoding libraries; this greatly reduces the need for finding/calibrating proprietary plugins."
"ApplicationName"="VLC media player"
"ApplicationIcon"="C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe,0"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VideoLAN\VLC\Capabilites\FileAssociations]
".mp3"="VLC.mp3"
".wav"="VLC.wav"
".wma"="VLC.wma"
".avi"="VLC.avi"
".mpg"="VLC.mpg"
(TRUNCATED)
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications]
"VLC media player"="Software\VideoLAN\VLC\Capabilites"
Some comments to the example: Under [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VideoLAN\VLC\Capabilites\FileAssociations] above: The VLC.* values references keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\. For instance, the “VLC.mp3″ references the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\VLC.mp3, which existed from the installation of VLC media player. Under the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\VLC.mp3, there exists values that describes how a MP3-file is opened if double-clicked while VLC is the associated program.
For a full example, please see my blogpost about VLC media player.
