Indesign not recognized by W10

[perrybrus]

The .indd files don't get recognized by W10. There's no icon attached to the .indd files and when I try to open it I'm forced to select manually what application to open it with. Even when I select always to open it with Indesign I have to repeat the process every single time.

[Mike Witherell]

What version of ID?

Have you run any Windows 10 cleanup utilities?

Have you considered manually editing the Windows Registry?

[perrybrus]

ID 15.1.2

No

No, I never touch the OS registery and I don't have acsess to it either.

[Randy Hagan]

You don't have to touch the registry. You just need to find an InDesign file in Windows 10 File Explorer.

Just single-click to select a .indd file, then right-click to open the context-sensitive menu and select the Open with... menu command. This opens a dialog box which lets you select the application you want to open the file with, as shown below:

Click on the More apps link to see likely suspects, or choose another app at he bottom of the list and navigate your way to InDesign.exe. Once you choose InDesign 2020, select the Always use this app to open .indd files check box, and click the OK button. Your unknown file icons should turn into purple ID box icons and InDesign 2020 should open your .indd files forevermore ... or until you change the app.

Don't forget to set these Open with... preferences for your templates (.indt), book (.indb) and library (.indl) files too. Then you'll be opening all your InDesign files with Adobe InDesign CC 2020.

Hope this helps,

Randy

[perrybrus]

Hi. As mentioned in my post I've allready tried to define ID to open my indd files with but it doesn't work. It doesn't work either when I just choose ID and check the Always use this app to open .indd files or if I select the ID exe file after looking it up under More apps. The .indd files still remains with a white document icon and I have to open and select each .indd file manually and select ID every time. Windows refuses to recognize the .indd file. This is a common issue with ID cause I've seen so many reports on this but it never seems to resolve. I've also contacted MS and they point to Adobe. I'm lost. I never have this issue with any other Adobe application.

[Randy Hagan]

I don't know what to say.

If you can't access this — though you say you can, just that it doesn't permanently take — and you can't access the registry at all, I'd say that you've got significant issues on the Windows 10 side, not the InDesign side. I see elsewhere that you say you have the same issue with your secondary machine. Does that mean your home system? Or, say, a company-issued laptop?

Do you work in a corporate environment? Does your IT department lock down your systems for other reasons? If so, your inability to assign your .indd files to an InDesign update may be collateral damage. You're probably going to have to hash that out with your IT folks to have them temporarily suspend restrictions and fix the issue for you.

If you can't get that, it may be worth it to you to roll back to the immediate previous version of the software and see if the file associations re-connect. You can install different versions of InDesign on the same machine, and/or uninstall/reinstall up to four versions back, I believe, and that may get you past your issue.

While we have seen other folks reporting that they've had issues with file associations on the Windows 10 side, it's generally just a matter of re-associating the files as I previously described. I'm not familiar with your issue, and I haven't experienced it myself or seen it on the literally hundreds of client computers I've worked with using Windows 10. That's not to deny you are having these problems, of course. But when I run across something atypical with running InDesign CC with Windows 10, I often find that it has to do with specific IT policies and not Windows 10.

Hopefully something here can help you,

Randy

[perrybrus]

As mentioned its the same on both company PC and "free unrestricted" PC. It never happens with any other Adobe app but quite frequently with ID, and it happens too many times to be random. I just checked with a couple of collegues and they are all experiencing the familiar ID issue again. As mentioned I reached out to MS again (this is not the first time) but they point to Adobe as mentioned in my prior post.

If I need to edit the Windows registry in order to fix this issue that's terrible cause registry is not a very common place to go for the avarage user. Perhaps someone should have a closer look why this issue so often seem to happen after an ID update? Adobe has dedicated a whole section on their own webpage to this but the fix tips don't always work. In our case (there's several in my team sharing this issue) nothing seems to work. Windows refuses to recognize the .indd files in the MIME protocoll. Well, the filetype is recognized correctly as .indd but InDesign is not recognized as the proper application to open that fileformat.

[Randy Hagan]

I didn't say you had to edit the Windows Registry. You just said that you can't. In fact, you reported in your previous post that you had no access to it. That's different than saying you won't, which seems to be what you're saying now.

Which is OK. You can keep that preference. You're right, in that you're digging pretty deep under the hood when you're fiddling with Registry settings. And you're absolutely right to avoid doing that if you feel uncomfortable doing so. But without outside restriction, every Windows 10 install grants you the ability to edit Registry settings. If in fact you have no access to do so, something else is blocking that. And I can assure you that it isn't InDesign.

I'm just an end user like you. But I'm not pointing you back at Microsoft. And I have no idea who you're talking with "at Microsoft" who'd point you to Adobe InDesign as the root of the problem. Really.

You still may, as I suggested, try rolling back to a previous install that worked for you. Not only would it give you a short-term solution to your issue, it would help you isolate if in fact the latest install of InDesign is the issue. You're not obligated to do that either. But it may help you past the problem you're having. All I want to do is help if I can. If all this is of no help to you, all I can say is that I've taken my best shot. Good luck.

Randy

[perrybrus]

If you read my posts I report no acsess on the computer I was using at the time, then I shared information that the very same issue was happening with my other computer without any access restrictions. So in other words the registry access restriction has nothing to do with it. As I also have shared in thsi thread other collegues also share the same issue as I've learned by Slacking a bunch of them.

I'll try to re-innstall the application. Thing is that is always a tidious solution cause I keep loosing all my local ID settings when I do.

[Randy Hagan]

So, you've tried the registry solution and it didn't work? You said previously that you didn't want to. But you did it?

I really want to help. If you could let us know here what you've already done, it'd help us help you. We wouldn't be suggesting things you already tried, and we could offer things you have not.

Randy

[Test Screen Name]

If you don't have access to the registry, maybe you've been blocked from updating file associations.

[perrybrus]

Just checked my secondary machine without access restrictions and it's the exact same deal there. It happened after last ID version upgrade.

[Eugene Tyson]

It's just a file association problem. You just need to assign the filetype to the program. 

[perrybrus]

If your read the thread that doesn't work.

[Ashutosh_Mishra · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about this. As mentioned in earlier responses, this looks like a file association issue. You may follow the instructions on this help article to fix it. If it doesn't help, you may try reinstalling the app using the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool.
You may also try creating a new user account on your machine and see how InDesign works there.

Let us know how it goes. Looking forward to your response.

Regards,

Ashutosh

[BobLevine]

I'm not going to read this whole thread, but typically this can be fixed by uninstalling and  reinstalling InDesign

[maria5DD6]

I´ve alreday tried this both with indesign and adobe reader -nothing works yet...

[BobLevine]

Start a new discussion with full details on whatever problem it is you're having. I'm going to lock this thread since it's been answered and it will serve you far better to begin fresh.