Solved 'Pick an app' is always default program for .TXT

[arachnaut]

I'm familiar with the sysinternal tools and I've used procmon many times.

This test will generate an enormous output log unless I craft some good filters.

I'll postpone that test and hope someone else has already solved this problem.

It's very late here, I'm off to bed.

EDIT:

PS:

If I log in as Administrator, that account works fine.
The user registry settings for .txt are identical to my own.
Looking at some very old registry backups, these fields have been like that for a long time.

 

[arachnaut]

Ok, then let's try to take a look inside.

1. Download and start Process Monitor.
2. Right-click a text file -> Open with - UltraEdit.
3. Right-click a text file -> Open with - Notepad.
4. Stop logging and upload the PML somewhere.

For 2 and 3, make sure the checkbox "Use this app" is checked.
For 3, has it changed the association to Notepad?

I'm not sure why you want the test run like this.
I already know that I can't change the association to Notepad.
The trace for this would probably look the same for both changes.

After I get some sleep, my head will be clearer tomorrow, this has been a frustrating day.

 

[arachnaut]

Well, I've figured out what is wrong, but not why.

The default program setting is controlled by this key in my directory:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt]


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt\OpenWithList]
"a"="Uedit32.exe"
"b"="NOTEPAD.EXE"
"c"="EXCEL.EXE"
"d"="Redline.exe"
"e"="Golly.exe"
"f"="WINWORD.EXE"
"g"="thunderbird.exe"
"h"="EXCEL.EXE"
"i"="chrome.exe"
"j"="MiniHost.exe"
"k"="baeihdcgf"
"MRUList"="abcd"


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt\OpenWithProgids]
"txtfile"=hex(0):
"UltraEdit.txt"=hex(0):


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt\UserChoice]
"Progid"="UltraEdit.txt"
"Hash"=---------------------------

(I obfuscated the HASH value for the sake of security).

This looked all well and good, but PROCMON kept reporting an 'access denied' for the UserChoice key.

Looking at the key permissions, indeed it showed me as 'Denied' for some reason, so I changed the permissions to allow me and now all is good.

While it is nice to fix problems, especially obscure things like this, it is still disturbing that I have no idea why I was restricted access for my own choice settings.

I will mark this as SOLVED, but I'm not really satisfied.

 

[arachnaut]

As a followup, I looked over some of the other file types I've assigned to UltraEdit.

Choosing the extension '.log' as an example, I see the same issue there - I don't have access to the UserChoice key even though it is set for UltraEdit.

I'm not going to go through the entire list of extensions.

I believe this may have something to do with the last Windows Update.

 

[arachnaut]

Yet another followup.

Perhaps the issue is something else. I use to have UltraEdit set up to run as administrator.

I remember removing that a while back for some reason - it didn't seem necessary.

But this could be the reason, for every time I change file associations in UE this problem recurs now.

I've set UE to run as administrator again and I've sent a note off to the UE tech support about this.

 

[XweAponX]

So it was an "Access Denied" on UUedit? I'm glad you were able to fix it.

You said the last program you installed was Firefox, maybe that program took over one of the file extensions you had used for UUedit, and then locked UUedit out. I never use Firefox, Only Chrome and IE, usually Chrome.

Are you using a Local account in 8 or an MS account? It may also be, that you had installed a new Windows 8 instance on a new PC. and the TXT was still set up to use Notepad by default, It might have locked out UUedit if it was not installed on the new machine.

That's the only thing I can think of, Interference from the Synced Settings of another machine via the MS account.

 

[arachnaut]

Access denied was from the registry access to the UserChoice setting of .txt files. Every program I run in my account would get that error because my account was denied access. That is why the default editor could not select it.

My installation was an in-place update from Windows 7, I only use the local account and desktop. UltraEdit was installed long ago.

 

[XweAponX]

Now that is odd. I've never had a particular file type ever get restricted like that, at least no common file types.

 

[Vadikan]

I'm not sure why you want the test run like this.

I imagine you're sure now ↓

PROCMON kept reporting an 'access denied' for the UserChoice key.

I'm glad you solved the problem by yourself

 

[arachnaut]

For the sake of completeness and to help others looking into this, I'll summarize what I've been able to learn about the default program handling in Windows 8.

I'm just going to focus on one particular extension '.txt' and one application 'UltraEdit' which I'll call UE for short.

By default, Windows 8 sets up 'Notepad' as the default handler for this.

A user can change the default program in several ways, I'll use the Default Programs Control Panel as the standard way to manage this.

You can select the list of file extensions handlers and alter them with that control panel, but it will only supply ones that have readable registry keys by the running user account.

In my case, some of these keys were restricted to Administrator only so I could not change them.

After allowing myself access to the proper keys, I was able to change them.

The particular keys involved in this are under this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\

For a particular extension there are several sub-keys:
OpenWithList - a set of programs that can open this extension
OpenWithProgids - a set of program IDs that can open this extension
UserChoice - the program ID that the current user chose to handle this extension

In addition, the UserChoice has an addition key called 'Hash' which I presume is added as a security feature.

Now to focus on UltraEdit and the problem I observe.

At some point recently, I don't know when, I lost the association of .txt files to UltraEdit. Since I mostly access UE through the right-click menu and not by double-click, I didn't notice that. UE adds a right-click option to edit all file types (or maybe I set it up that way). I've been using UE for decades so I don't always remember the default behavior and what I've changed.

When I investigated that problem I discovered that my account was denied access to the UserChoice field of '.txt'.
I have no idea why that happened, but I changed it to allow me access.

After getting access I was able to choose UltraEdit as my default program.

However, there were further problems which remain unsolved. I am attempting resolution with the UE people.

Here is what I see happening.

Firstly, UE is not registering itself with capabilities in the HKLM\Software\RegisteredApplications, so it is not recognized as a default program handler. If it did so, the defaults handler could query it and list it as an application with default settings.

Instead, it has it's own File Associations handler in its configuration menu.

Unfortunately, this does not seem to work in Windows 8 because it does not set the Hash key.

If I use UE to set file associations, the OS reverts back to NotePad because the Hash key is gone.
If I select UE manually, the Hash key is set and all works well.

I have a feeling that this Hash key is a recent change, maybe a security fix.

 

[Vadikan]

I have a feeling that this Hash key is a recent change, maybe a security fix.

It's not recent, and it's not a security fix. It's meant to ensure that file associations are changed only via the system dialogs (Control Panel, Open with, etc).

 

[arachnaut]

I guess 'recent' is relative - I still consider Windows 8 'recent'!
Thanks for that explanatory link.