Windows 10: Unable to use "Open with" on txt, jpg or png extensions. Opens only in default app

Question

Intro

In December 2018, I got myself a new ASUS N550JV laptop and I did a standard installation of Windows 10 Education 64-bit on the first day.

Everything works quite nicely, but there's one problem that's been bothering me for months now. In December, I even posted feedback about that on Microsoft Feedback Hub, but it seems like nobody pays attention to that.

Funny thing is that I also own a desktop PC, which also runs Windows 10 Education, and the same problem occurs.

The issue

Let's talk about files with .txt extension. I prefer opening any textual files using Sublime Text 3. Windows uses Notepad by default, so my system opens .txt files using Notepad on double-click.

Sublime Text 3 is installed on the system, and is located in C:\Program Files\Sublime Text 3.

After I right-click the .txt file, the "Open with" text is bold and the only offered option under that menu is, again, "Open with". Clicking this option does absolutely nothing but ignores my command.

I previously had Windows 7 installed on my PC, and I was able to use "Open with" context menu, as well as set Sublime Text 3 as a default application for opening .txt files.

The same problem occurs with extensions .jpg, .png, .pdf, .docx, .xlsx and so on. Nothing happens after I press "Open with".

I tried setting the default app for .txt extension using a setting called Choose a default app for each type of file in Windows 10, but trying to change the app from Notepad to Sublime Text 3 was impossible because Windows somehow thought that Notepad was the only available application.

It seems that even after some Windows 10 major updates during these 4 months, the issue has not been resolved. I'm starting to think that this isn't Windows-related.

Screenshots

Using "Open with" on .txt: Fail

Using "Open with" on .png: Fail

Using "Open with" on .mp4: Success

Some file types, like .mp4, are not glitched and it looks like this:

---

System specs

DxDiag of my laptop

      Time of this report: 4/4/2019, 17:45:24
             Machine name:
               Machine Id:
         Operating System: Windows 10 Education 64-bit (10.0, Build 17763) (17763.rs5_release.180914-1434)
                 Language: Croatian (Regional Setting: Croatian)
      System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
             System Model: N550JV
                     BIOS: BIOS Date: 11/19/13 10:26:41 Ver: 04.06.05 (type: BIOS)
                Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4700HQ CPU @ 2.40GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
                   Memory: 16384MB RAM
      Available OS Memory: 15820MB RAM
                Page File: 11095MB used, 20595MB available
              Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
          DirectX Version: DirectX 12
      DX Setup Parameters: Not found
         User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
       System DPI Setting: 120 DPI (125 percent)
          DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
                 Miracast: Available, with HDCP
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Supported
           DxDiag Version: 10.00.17763.0001 64bit Unicode

DxDiag of my PC

      Time of this report: 4/4/2019, 18:04:08
             Machine name:
               Machine Id:
         Operating System: Windows 10 Education 64-bit (10.0, Build 17134) (17134.rs4_release.180410-1804)
                 Language: Croatian (Regional Setting: Croatian)
      System Manufacturer: System manufacturer
             System Model: P5K SE/EPU
                     BIOS: BIOS Date: 10/20/08 15:00:31 Ver: 08.00.12 (type: BIOS)
                Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q9550  @ 2.83GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
                   Memory: 5120MB RAM
      Available OS Memory: 5120MB RAM
                Page File: 5839MB used, 1455MB available
              Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
          DirectX Version: DirectX 12
      DX Setup Parameters: Not found
         User DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
       System DPI Setting: 144 DPI (150 percent)
          DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
                 Miracast: Not Available
Microsoft Graphics Hybrid: Not Supported
           DxDiag Version: 10.00.17134.0001 64bit Unicode

Update

I've previously attempted to set the default app for these extensions using Choose a default app for each type of file setting in Windows 10, but with no luck. For example, clicking on Notepad dropdown menu right next to .txt extension would give me Notepad as the only option. I tried this today (2019-04-04), and it gave me a couple of choices, including Sublime Text 3. Apparently this has been fixed, and I can now happily double-click .txt files and have them opened in my favorite text editor.

But, I am still curious to know why the right click -> Open with -> Open with option does not work.

Update 2

Thanks to Win32Guy's answer in the first comment below, the issue was resolved quickly. Turns out it was a shell extension blocking some other context menu items. Using ShellExView I managed to detect a suspicious context menu item and I've disabled it.

It helps a lot if you sort these items by "Microsoft" column, to see which context menu items are not from Microsoft Corporation because one of these is probably causing the problem.

Answer 1

May be a shell extension is causing the problem. Use ShellExView to narrow down the offending context menu shell extension.

Open-with list is collapsed; No items listed in the open-with menu