Changing the default version of MATLAB for opening files

I have MATLAB 2016a and 2018b installed on the same machine. We don't want to uninstall 2016 yet because we have significant amounts of code written for 2016a which might not work on 2018b. The problem is, everything defaults to opening with 2016a. I have tried to fix this though going into the Windows options of changing what programme opens files, but the problem is that when I browse to the 2018b executeable it just notes that it is also MATLAB and leaves it as 2016a. So this is probably more a bug in Windows than strictly a MATLAB issue. But does anyone know how to fix it? I know of workarounds like opening 2018a first then doing file > open, but we want it to work properly.

Answer 1

[Hakan Basargan]

Please note that this solution for the Windows.

1. Run the Terminal.
2. Go to the matlab root by using cd command (until you find matlab.exe)
3. Then matlab.exe/register

Thats all.

[John Green]

I just tried this to get r2020b to run instead of my old r2007 and it didn't work. The old version still starts when double clicking a .m file

[John Green]

The command window shows a warning for Unrecognized command line option: register

[Hakan Basargan]

Please make sure that you have located the matlab root (bin).

[Adam Danz]

> Please make sure that you have located the matlab root (bin).

Find it using,

r = matlabroot()

Answer 2

[Adam Danz]

For windows 10, follow these instructions (I've used this method recently with r2021a)

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-making-it-easier-to-manage-default-file-associations/

If there are still problems, use this function on the file exchange,

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/51165-matlab-file-association-shortcut-fix

[nitzan lubi]

I have tried using both options, and to manually change the default matlab path on the system variables.

Nothing works... I currently have both 2018 and 2020b, and still the default version when pressing on a .m file or via cmd prompt, 2018 comes up.

Does anyone has any idea how to solve this?