FC doesn't remember/save file associations

[kaehvogel]

Hey there everybody, and a wonderful Monday to you all.

I'm having a very weird issue with FC (840, 32bit) on my laptop, in that it doesn't seem to be able to remember file associations for .jpg/.jpeg files. Whenever I want to open a jp(e)g, it asks me which program I'd like to use for that.
Now, I'm one of those people who absolutely loathe the "new" Win10 photos app, so I've made sure to go back to the old Photo Viewer on every single PC I use. Done that on multiple systems with the registry edit, and it always worked flawlessly. It kinda does, on the laptop I'm talking about, as well...but only if I use windows file explorer. In FC in somehow doesn't.
I've reinstalled FC multiple times, also going back to vanilla with the settings...nothing. It doesn't even matter which photo viewer I tell it to use (and "always use this app to open..."), I've tried irfanview, for example...the next time I want to open a jp(e)g it just asks again. I also tried setting irfanview as the default program for *.jpg in the FC settings, but it just ignores me and throws that stupid app selection popup at me anyway.
It really seems to be just jpgs, though, I haven't seen other file formats having the same issue. And when I open a picture in a different file format first, both photo viewer and irfanview can easily jump to my jpgs and display them.

My desktop PC and my previous laptop, where I used the same method of "resurrecting" the old photo viewer, use the exact same .inis for my FC, etc...have no problems at all.

Long story short: FC asks which program to run to display jpgs every time, doesn't save the choice...but file explorer does, so it seems to be a FC/communication issue.

If anyone has any idea what I can do with that, what might be going wrong there...I'd greatly appreciate the help. It's getting kinda frustrating at this point.

Thanks in advance, and greetings from Germany.

[Uhuru NUru]

I don't have such issues, but I use windows context menu, and thus windows controls what opens when I click on a JPG, PNG etc.
Now I also don't want windows default image viewing/editing choices, and never have. Since XP days I've used Irfan View as my basic image viewer (usaully JPG, PNG,GIF, plus now WebP), and GIMP has my image editing choice for just as lomg.
Setting these in Windows I usually let GIMP install first as default, then override that with IrfanView, this sets things up so GIMP's image formats unsupported by Irfan View get opened by GIMP especially the default GIMP specific XCF format, while allowing quick viewing of the common images.

Now you seem to have this set correctly, as you say everything works in explorer, but not in Free Commander.
This suggests you use Free Commander for File/Folder Operations, see
Tools - Settings - File/folder operations - Tab General

This means you also need to use settings I don't, namely the instructions for what to open files with when clicked in the Programs section, spoecifically
Tools - Settings - Programs - Tab Viewers

and
Tools - Settings - Programs - Tab External viewers

AS far as I understand this the Viewers, are for within Free Commander, and external Viewers opens the other program as a separate viewer.

Once setup for the extensions you desire to open, one of these should fix the issues you're having, or do as I do, and by using windows as default for such general operations, you can avoid this setup step entirely.

[Dreamer]

I think the problem could be related with OS, I had some dialogs when opening the files, which were associated with programs before, but it was just occasionally.

Workaround could be - Settings - Programs - Default action.

OK, I see you tried it already...

I also tried setting irfanview as the default program for *.jpg in the FC settings, but it just ignores me and throws that stupid app selection popup at me anyway.

One question though, are you sure you clicked the checkbox for this option?

[Dreamer]

I had the same problem with .avi file today, when I opened it, cancel, opened again, I had that dialog every time and after set default action program in FC I had no dialog, it was working good.

I think it's important to set the Parameters too "%ActivSel%" and again, don't forget to click the checkbox.