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I use cygwin version of gvim to edit files in windows, for that I created a bat script that opens a file with cygwin version of gvim(by converting the path to cygwin format). I also wrote a small powershell script to register this bat script with windows explorer so I can associate file extensions using the 'open with' context menu. Here is the script:

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
$classes="hkcu:\software\classes"
$appid="cygwin.gvim"
$apps="$classes\applications"
$cmd='...SOMEDIRECTORY...\edit-gvim.bat'
$friendlyname='gVim (Cygwin)'
$icon='...ANOTHERDIRECTORY...\vim.ico'
$filetypes=@(".txt", ".ps1", ".sh", ".py", ".cs", ".cpp", ".c", ".rb",
    ".zsh", ".bash", ".vbox", ".xml", ".yml", ".yaml", ".bat")

if (test-path "$apps\$appid") {
  # cleanup
  remove-item -recurse "$apps\$appid"
}

# register open commands to know filetypes
new-item -path "$apps\$appid\shell\open\command" -value "$cmd `"%1`"" -force

# add a context menu item(edit with gVim) to every file in windows explorer
new-item -path "$classes\*\shell\Edit with $friendlyname\command" -value "$cmd `"%1`"" -force

# friendly name for the 'open with' dialog
new-itemproperty -path "$apps\$appid\shell\open" -name 'FriendlyAppName' -value $friendlyname

# register the icon
# FIXME this has no effect 
new-item -path "$apps\$appid\DefaultIcon" -value $icon -type expandstring

# register supported file extensions
new-item -path "$apps\$appid\SupportedTypes"
foreach ($ext in $filetypes) {
  new-itemproperty -path "$apps\$appid\SupportedTypes" -name $ext -PropertyType string -value ''
}

Everything works except the line below the 'FIXME' comment, which aparently has no effect. Instead of seeing my provided icon with applications associated with gvim, I see windows default icon for unknown file types. What am I missing here?

Here are some resources I used to write this script:

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Thiago Padilha
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  • If you look at the DefaultIcon reg val in RegEdit, what do you see? Does it get created? Is it of type REG_EXPAND_SZ? Does it have the right value with `%` around the env var to expand? – Keith Hill Apr 17 '13 at 18:35
  • It gets created correctly with REG_EXPAND_SZ(that is controled by the -type expandstring argument). The value is the full path to the icon, there are no environment variables to expand. You can try the script yourself by providing some stub icon and bat file. – Thiago Padilha Apr 17 '13 at 18:47
  • If there are no env variables to expand then all you need is type REG_SZ. But I don't think that is the problem here. The file type gets its icon from hklm:\software\classes\. where the default reg value names the document type (eg txtfile for .txt). Then under hklm:\software\classes\txtfile in this case, is where DefaultIcon goes. – Keith Hill Apr 18 '13 at 00:08

1 Answers1

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I can make a mistake, but as far as I understand the syntax of DefaultIcon is :

"Full path to a file,ordinal"

This is usefull when you want to point to a resource in an EXE or a DLL

C:\Program Files (x86)\PowerGUI\ScriptEditor.exe,1

But you have to keep the same syntax if you want to point to an icon file :

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AcroExch.acrobatsecuritysettings.1\DefaultIcon]
@="C:\\Windows\\Installer\\{AC76BA86-7AD7-1036-7B44-A95000000001}\\PDFFile_8.ico,0"

So, in your case, I would try :

$icon='...ANOTHERDIRECTORY...\vim.ico,0'

or

$icon='...ANOTHERDIRECTORY...\\vim.ico,0'

Edited

Don't forget to restart explroer.exe to see the new icon.

JPBlanc
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