I’ve been using AnyTime Organizer for quite time. It’s a PIM software from Individual Software with basic calendar and address book. After several upgrades, I’m currently at version 11.0 and although it kind of sucks, I still use it.

The other day I bought a Windows 8 desktop computer at Costco and installed AnyTime Organizer. From previous experience, I knew Windows Shell wasn’t going to work properly. What I mean is when a file is double clicked, you expect the software start and open that file. AnyTime kept opening the last file used. This is fine if you work with a single file but I like using multiple files…one for personal and one for work related stuff.

After looking through the registry, I found the culprit. The “Open” verb associated with file extension “.ATW” was not set correctly. Below is the original value for the open command followed by the corrected value to fix this issue.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Atw.Document\shell\open\command

• (Default) = C:\PROGRA~2\ANYTIM~1\Atw.exe %2  (incorrect)
• (Default) = C:\PROGRA~2\ANYTIM~1\Atw.exe “%1”  (correct)

Step-By-Step

Windows Shell (File Explorer or Windows Explorer) uses the registry to associate files with applications. When you right-click a file, the Shell displays a context menu with a list of commands such as “Open”, “Open With”, etc. These commands are also known as Verbs. Among other things, installing AnyTime Organizer would have created two keys in the registry: (1)  HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.ATW to register the file extension and (2) HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Atw.Document to associate the file extension with AnyTime Organizer. We’ll need to change the entry for “Atw.Document \shell\open\command”.

First, launch the registry editor (C:\Windows\regedit.exe) and navigate to the following key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Atw.Document. When you expand this key you should see something like this:

Double click on the default entry for the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Atw.Document\shell\open\command and make changes. Here’s what it should look like after making your changes:

Make sure in enclose “%1” in double quotes and that’s all there’s too it. Now double clicking on an AnyTime Organizer file should open the correct file.