"Open With..." cannot differentiate paths

[Guest Love4Brandy]

Hi,

I have two versions of 3DS Max installed (under XP SP3 x86): 2011 and 2012. They were installed into separate directories and both work fine. However, because I installed 2011 after installing 2012 (I found I need 2011 for compatibility), 2011 was the last program to register itself with the Windows shell and so if I double-click on a .max file in the shell it opens in 2011.

I figured it would be an easy matter of right-clicking and using "Open With..." It only listed "3ds max" generically and so I clicked on Browse and specifically browsed to the folder where 2012 is installed and picked its executable (3dsmax.exe).

However, Windows blatantly ignored my request and opened it with 2011 anyway. I'm guessing that the problem arises from the fact that, although the two versions are in different directories, their startup executables have the same name, 3dsmax.exe, so the Open With dialog is assuming they're the same thing.

The program does not to my knowledge have any setting to re-register itself to handle .max files, short of reinstalling, and in any event I would ideally want to be able to pick which version I want from the context menu by right-clicking.

I figured I'd edit the .max class in the registry to give myself both options, but there's just a ShellEx key with a GUID. Even if I rename the whole .max class to something else and then try "Open With...", Windows is quite insistent on opening it in Max 2011.

I can manually invoke the desired version and open the file with it, of course, but this is a hassle that should be needless.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Kevin

 

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