If you spend a lot of time working with different file types and software, you’ve probably run into a situation where you really don’t want to open a file with the program that is associated with it. For example, I have Macromedia Dreamweaver on my system and it is associated with HTML files (*.htm). But sometimes, I just want to look at an HTML file in Notepad. To open the file in this case, I right-click it and choose Open With, then Notepad.
That’s great if the program you want is listed on the Open With menu. But what if it’s not? In that case, when you right click, select Choose Program. In the Open With dialog box, Windows shows you a list of Recommended programs and then below that a list of other programs on your list. Scroll through the list and find the one you want. If you don’t see it, click the Browse button and search your hard disk for the program you want.
After you select the program, you’ll discover that from now on, that program is available as an option in the Open With menu for that type of file. Make sure you don’t click the little check box that says Always use the selected program to open, however. Doing so will change the file association, which is probably not what you want to do if you are using Open With.