Friendly Names in Windows

Cubase
1

Hi. If, like me, you have several versions of Cubase installed and, like me, find it slightly annoying that both 8.0 and 8.5 for example show up in Open With as ‘Cubase 8’, read on because I have finally found where you change them.

You open Regedit (with all the customary precautions of course) and go to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\MuiCache
Each application has a FriendlyAppName, which is what you see in the Open With list and Tool Tips. You simply scroll down to the Steinberg entries and edit the offending FriendlyAppName key to include the .5 where necessary. While you’re at it you can also add the missing 5 to Cubase 5 and the 3 to Cubase SX3. And now I don’t have to clutter my desktop up with icons any more.

A bit trivial maybe but I’m glad I found it so just in case someone else finds it useful, here it is.

Cheers,
C

1 Like
2

For Cubase 9 and later here is the location in the registry for the indistinguishable Edit in Cubase entries you see when you right-click on a project file(*):

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations.cpr\shell

where you will see one or more keys beginning edit.Cubase. Select each in turn and double-click the Name entry (rh pane) to change Data to something more helpful.

(*) Edit:
These seem rather useless entries tbh: you get an Open With… dialog, whereas with the actual Open With… menu item the correct version opens directly. So, seeing as these edit.Cubase keys were all it contained, I have deleted the entire HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.cpr key with no ill effects (after saving it out first, of course, using File>Export…, just in case).