Open pde files with Arduino under Windows

This has been bugging me for while – I could not associate .pde files with arduino executable , I would select Open With… choose the executable but it won't work , so I decided to write a .reg script to correct the problem. After some research turns out other people had the same problem it happens with Windows 7 and might have something to do  with having Processing installed, in any case if you have this problem here is the fix.

Create a file called  arduino.reg with the following contents:


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.pde]
@="Arduino.Document"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Arduino.Document\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\arduino\\arduino.exe\" \"%1\""


Please note this assumes your arduino installation was unzipped to C:\arduino\ . If different , update accordingly the reg file but make sure to use double quotes \\ for path delimiter as highlighted above.

Next simply double click on the arduino.reg file you have created and the keys will be imported to your registry. Now when you right click on the .pde file you should see arduino as one of the options (and you can make it default program to open pde files). 

7 thoughts on “Open pde files with Arduino under Windows

    • starlino Post authorReply

      Maybe, but it worked for me :) Thanks for the link , it’s good to see there are other ways around it .

  1. Paul Reply

    Worked fine in an Windows Vista environment with Arduino 22. Just make sure that you replace the line that calls for the location of where your arduino.exe file is correctly. Mine was in:
    C:\Users\Paul\Documents\Arduino\arduino-0022

    so the last line of the .reg file needs to read:

    @=”\”C:\\Users\\Paul\\Documents\\Arduino\\arduino-0022\\arduino.exe\” \”%1\””

  2. Fileark Reply

    It did register Arduino.exe so that I could then do a “Open With” and finally select Arduino.exe. By the way I don’t have Processing installed.
    Thanks!!!

  3. Patrick Schindler Reply

    OMFG you are a genius :-) Worked like a charm on Windows 7 – I had no idea you can do that. Only change I made was using “arduino-1.0.3” in the path instead of “arduino” since that was the name of my file. THANKS!!! I was so sick of working around that bug. You are my hero for the day – methods

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