Illustrator BETA Default App

I wanted to share a solution that finally worked for me after spending far too much time trying to resolve this issue.

On Windows 11, if you have both Illustrator 2026 and Illustrator Beta installed, right-clicking an .ai file and selecting Open with > Choose another app > Always use this app does not allow Illustrator 2026 to remain the default application.

I tried all of the troubleshooting suggestions posted by Adobe, along with numerous recommendations I found online, but none of them resolved the problem.

After a lot of searching, I finally found a solution that worked for me.

Open an Administrator Command Prompt and run the following command:

"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator 2026\Support Files\Contents\Windows\Illustrator.exe" /regserver

After running the command, Illustrator 2026 was restored to the Open with menu, and double-clicking an .ai file once again opened the production version of Illustrator instead of Illustrator Beta.

One minor issue remains: the Windows file icon for .ai files still does not revert to the standard Illustrator icon. However, the file association itself works correctly, which is far more important.

I hope Adobe addresses this long-standing issue. Many of us install Illustrator Beta specifically to test new features on non-critical files while continuing to use the production version for our daily work. The Beta application should not continually reclaim the default file association every time it updates.