Windows 8 Can i make just certain files of a type open with a specific program in windows 8?

StefanStojkovski

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The thing is, i open java files with Eclipse by default. Today i wanted to take some notes about Java the programming language which include text and code. I used Notepad++, and with it you can save the file as a wide variety of types, among them java file. I chose this, but since they are associated with eclipse, it makes opening them with Notepad++ tedious. I want to ask if there is a way to set the default program for some java files Notepad++ and leave Eclipse for the rest? This would be a useful feature for few other types too. Thanks!
 
Solution
Sorry, no. In Windows (XP, Vista, Win 7 or Win 8) you can only associate 1 default program with a particular file type.

I don't see how it would be possible anyway, at best a prompt would be required for you to choose which of multiple programs to open the file with.
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Sorry, no. In Windows (XP, Vista, Win 7 or Win 8) you can only associate 1 default program with a particular file type.

I don't see how it would be possible anyway, at best a prompt would be required for you to choose which of multiple programs to open the file with.
 
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Solution

The only way is to use Open With option each and every time you want to open a java file.
Right click at a java file > Open With > select either Notepad++ or Eclipse.

In case you do not have Open With in your right click context menu, use this....
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52833-open-context-menu-item-add-remove.html
 
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StefanStojkovski said:
It would be a useful feature to include in the next versions of Windows.
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How would you propose making this happen? How would you go about letting the OS know that these files open with this program yet these other files open with a different program? It seems that you want to be able to register a default program by filename rather than extension. It seems that would require a large db to contain all the filenames and their associated programs. When you double-clicked on a file, the db would need to be searched in order to find and start the program associated with it. The more files you had on your computer, the longer it would take to search the db to find the filename.

You should propose this feature to Microsoft for their consideration, if there area lot of people requesting that feature, they might implement it.
 
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Hi

What criteria would you use to separate them.

All .jpg files look alike to Windows, if you want some to open with Photoshop, and others with Microsoft Paint, the best way to have that happen is to save them in different file formats.

You could save Bobs Cat.jpg as Bobs Cat.tif, and use a compressed .tif format instead of .jpg.

Then the .jpgs could be set to open in Paint and the .tifs could be set to open in Photoshop.
You could do this with many types of files, for sound .mp3 or .wav, Text files in .doc or .txt etc.

But somewhere the user will have to make the decision as to which files open with which programs, based on the users personal preference.

Not everyone will want Elton John files to open in Media Player and Elvis files to open in Winamp.

It's probably easier to just select 'Open with" from the dropdown and send the file to wherever you want it, as Strollin said.

Personally, if you are reopening the files repeatedly, over a period of time, I'd save all the files that you want to open in Wordpad with a different format.

When you are done editing them you could resave them all back to whatever you want.

Mike
 
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I won't keep a database of all names. I would still retain the "opening by type", but add 2 list of exceptions per type or per application, those that shouldn't be opened with its default associated app, and those that are to be opened, though are not of associated type. I will also make sure i search all the list only when making an exception, just to make sure that a conflict doesn't appear, when a file is in more than 2 lists. Yes, it will be slower if the list of exceptions has many entries, but none will make you use it by force. I want to use that feature, lets say for 3000 files of 10 types (avr. 300 entries per type). Do you think that is a big database? After all Windows for PC is intended for individual users, and in most situations, runs on a machine that does't store that much data (1-2 TB). I don't know, this might require more thought before rejecting or accepting it.
 
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