Paint.NET :: Change Windows Default Image Editor

If you right-click an image and click "Edit" in Windows, this opens the image in MS Paint. And you can't change this. Or that's what I thought; here's how to change that to Paint.NET!

Warning: This post probably looks really suspicious since this is my first post. What the heck. Anyways, I know diddly squat about the Registry. Some tweak sites for XP mentioned this tweak (stating this key would be found at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ SystemFileAssociations \ image \ shell \ edit \ command). That exact key didn't exist. So, I searched the Registry for "SystemFileAssociations" and found the key I wrote below (in HKLM). I then took a huge risk and tried the hack. It worked, but I may have inadvertently told Windows to delete C:\Windows upon reboot.

All right, so if you right-click an image in Windows XP, Vista, or 7, there is an option in the context menu called "edit". This defaults to MS Paint and I thought that was impossible to change. Until I did some Google'ing (see Warning above). Go to this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\SystemFileAssociations\image\shell\edit\command

First, back up your registry (System Restore or regedit.exe -> File -> Export). Again, anything you do now is completely your responsibility. Then, right-click the only key in there, click Modify, and replace the path with your PaintDotNet.exe path (obviously include \PaintDotNet.exe). Don't change the quotes or the %1. Just delete MS Paint's path and insert PaintDotNet.exe's path.