Editing Make vim the editor for files with unregistered extensions in Windows

{{Duplicate|279}}
{{review}}
{{TipImported
|id=185
|previous=184
|next=188
|created=2001
|complexity=basic
|author=Leif Wickland
|version=6.0
|rating=55/27
|category1=Windows
|category2=
}}
Normally in Windows, if you try to "launch" a file whose extension is not registered with the system, the OS will prompt you for what editor you would like to use to open the file. A much more appealing solution, in my mind, is to make Vim the default editor for any unregistered extension.

To set Vim up as the default editor for unregistered extensions, follow these steps:

1. Copy the following into a file named unregistered.reg

<pre>
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\shell\Open\Command]
@="d:\\program files\\vim\\vim60\\gvim.exe \"%1\""
</pre>

2. Import unregistered into your registry. This can be done in Vim by executing the following

<pre>
:!regedit "unregistered.reg"
</pre>

Disclaimer: This has been tested only on NT4.

==Comments==
It doesn't work for Windows 2000. Too bad...

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My install of Win2K had an "openas" key defined;
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\shell\openas

I renamed it to
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\shell\openasBak
and imported the unregistered.reg (adjusted for my gvim install) and
now unregistered files open with gvim.

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Windows 2000 NT
This works:
 Registry-Path: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\shell\openas\command]

I changed this:
 %SystemRoot%\system32\rundll32.exe %SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,OpenAs_RunDLL %1
to
 "D:/vim/vim60/gvim.exe" "%1"
and it works.

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Same as Tip [[VimTip279]]: On Windows, make GVim the default action for double-click with "unknown file types"

Works on Win9x, WinME, WinNT, Win2k, WinXP.

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This tip ending up causing more problems than it was worth. It replaced the functionality of "Open With" in XP so that instead of bringing up a list of programs, it would just open up in Vim.

YMMV, so make sure to backup the registry key(s) before applying.

Note: running XP Pro, Vim 7

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Confirm problem noted above. See [[VimTip279]] for workable scheme.
:<s>What problem noted above? I see a note that it doesn't work on Win2000, but another post offers a solution. No other specific problems are mentioned that I can tell. --[[User:Fritzophrenic|Fritzophrenic]] 15:46, November 8, 2011 (UTC)</s> No doubt the "problem noted above" refers to replacing the "Open With" dialog with just opening in Vim, which I can see would be a problem for many users. --[[User:Fritzophrenic|Fritzophrenic]] ([[User talk:Fritzophrenic|talk]]) 16:59, November 12, 2012 (UTC)