> Not only does jEdit not ask which file asssociations it should steal
I absolutely do not believe that jEdit stole this file association.

> it provides no way I can find to set them back
Most programs don't have an option to set the file association. Associations are managed by the OS.

> I'm disappointed that this issue was brought up in May and not yet addressed.
I don't believe this is a true issue.

> I guess this isn't a very actively developed product?
AFAIK development has been opened for more developers. Perhaps there are a lot of things to manage in the background.

Sorry, I can't present You a solution but a tip or two..

1. There is hope for You: My jEdit got no associations - means it is not associated as a standard application to any filetype.
Unfortunally I cannot tell You wether or not I set any options at installation.
By the way: There is no need to execute an instllation routine. You can copy the hole jEdit directory anywhere, start the jar and jEdit runs...

2. You wrote that jEdit "steals" associations. Are You sure that there where other explicit standard applications associated with certain filetypes before installing jEdit? If so, I got no really good idea other than not "installing"...

3. I guess that jEdit creates a contextmenu item for every filetype that is normally not the standard application.
But assumed, there is no application defined for i.e. .dsw files, then one of the applications defined for every file will become the standard application for .dsw files - may be jEdit.
=> Check the registry entries under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\ and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\. What keys are there?


Robert

I had the same problem... JEdit was stealing my .GIF association with M$ Photo Editor (plus many others), so...

1 - YES! There WAS an application associated with that file types!
2 - YES! JEdit stole it... all extensions where still associated with some application... at least theorically!
and...
3 - I NEVER mentioned that I wanted JEdit to open any damn specific file type, and I couldn't find an option regarding this anywhere in JEdit options.

Thanks Robert Schwenn... at least you pointed out the solution: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ had nothing about JEdit, but HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\ had a single folder, to associate with JEdit... to the hell with this folder... and it's all ok at least!

It's solved here, but I still wanted to let here a record of my anger! For some times, RAGING anger... (I'm almost like that right now)
Despite this problem looking like something that M$ did wrong (* association replacing specific file association only for some spacific files, for some very weird reason), I've never said that I wanted JEdit opening any file type, have I? No!
Have I ever been asked about it? No!!
Do I had an option to disable it, instead of looking for a solution, and doing it manually? You bet: NO!!!

It may seem I'm magnifying it a little (a lot?)... but today I almost hate JEdit because of all this file association matter! I use it just because of JDiff...

That's it! Keep your work, fix whatever you guys thinks it more important... I really don't care!

PS: It's strange that after all this, it was a bit painful to write the last phrase... maybe because you have never intended to upset anyone with this... but I felt I needed to do it!

I'm pretty sure it's connected to the way Windows prioritises file behaviours. It certainly doesn't happen to all extensions, and grabbing them back in the one or two pieces of relevant software has worked fine.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\Shell\nameofcommand\command

That's syntax for _adding_ a context menu command to all filetypes, _not_ overriding. I've got another piece of software installed called Bulk Rename Utility, which attaches to the same key and currently seems to have assigned itself to the .css extension in the same way jEdit did previously.

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/1117229328

^ The change in behaviour from 2000 to XP suggests it's an OS bug.

Deleting the key should fix things completely, and you can use jEdit launcher or the same javaw.exe syntax to assign filetypes individually if your Windows install is having problems.

An example is that after installation of JEdit, whenever I attempted to open a Visual Studio .NET solution, it would be opened (as text) in JEdit. Visual Studio .NET was of course previously registered to open .sln files.

The crazy thing was, I couldn't even set this back the normal way - using 'Open With - Choose Program' and selecting Visual Studio opened the solution with Visual Studio, but even when I selected 'always use the selected program to open this type of file' the next time it would still open with JEdit.

This occured for both me and a workmate, causing us both to de-install.

Surely there must be code in the installer which is explcitly setting this, and which can easily be removed (and should be).

I didn't look in the registry, but the behaviour should be easily reproducible by installing on Windows 2000.

Not if it's a bug exclusive to the way 2000 handles filetypes. I also use 2000, but it's a six-year-old operating system and far from perfect. (No such thing as far as Microsoft operating systems go.) It's not an environment home users will typically encounter, since XP Home was the first NT5.x branch to be marketed to them.

A better compromise would be to make this an optional part of the install, with warning about some users experiencing issues.