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When I right click on a jpg file in Windows Explorer (Windows 7), I see that there is an "Edit" menu item. If I click this item, it opens the image in MSPaint. Blah. I have Paint.NET installed, and I'd like to change the "Edit" action to open the image in Paint.NET.

How can I go about doing this?

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up vote 6 down vote accepted

I found this little program while surfing the web: Default Programs Editor. I think it is able to do what you want.

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Bingo! That worked like a charm. Thanks for the info. – slolife Nov 12 '09 at 17:38
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I was searching for a way of doing the same thing for editing HTML files. The program worked well. – Jeromy Anglim Jun 7 '10 at 6:57
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up vote 4 down vote

The registry key you want is "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Paint.Picture\shell\edit\command" for bmp files, "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\shell\edit\command" for jpg. Change these to "C:\Path\to\your\image\program.exe" "%1" including the " and it should work.

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up vote 1 down vote

Right click a jpg file, choose properties, on the general tab click change in the field "Opens with". Browse to the Paint.NET .exe file and select it. Click open and then ok. Now your jpg files should automatically open with Paint.NET.

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This changes the "Open" action, not the "Edit" action, if I'm not mistaken. – Snark Nov 11 '09 at 9:11
Yes it does but it also should add Paint.NET to the "open with" context menu entry which essentially gives the OP the alternatives he wants. – CGA Nov 11 '09 at 12:20
While good information, this is not what I am looking for. I like what Open does, and don't want to change it. I really am looking to change the Edit context menu. – slolife Nov 11 '09 at 16:44
I think I found the registry key which controls this context menu: "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\shell\edit\command" Change the value in the default string to your Paint.NET path. In my case I changed it to Xnview like this: "C:\Program Files (x86)\XnView\xnview.exe" "%1" Like always when editing the registry, be careful, taking a system restore point before any changes is a good idea. – CGA Nov 12 '09 at 15:05
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up vote 1 down vote

The registry key you want is "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Paint.Picture\shell\edit\command" for bmp files, "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\shell\edit\command" for jpg. Change these to "C:\Path\to\your\image\program.exe" "%1" including the " and it should work.

this is exactly what i was looking for. works a treat in XP as well. thanks!

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up vote 0 down vote

hey just thought i would chuck this in since this page proved useful. i have been trying to change the EDIT function to point to Notepad ++ rather than Notepad for .txt files for a while now. its under

"HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\text\shell\edit\command" just point it to your desired word editor.

kudos to CGA

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