How to get Spyder to open python scripts (.py files) directly from Windows Explorer

With the current version of Anaconda (4.1.0) you can simply right-click on a python script in Windows File Explorer and choose "Open with". The first time you do this you need to select "Choose default program" and then browse to spyder.exe in the Script directory in your Anaconda installation. Also make sure that the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" is unchecked and then click OK. From now on spyder.exe will always be listed as one of the options when you select "Open with" from the right-click menu in Windows File Explorer.

Right now there is no way to open a file in Spyder from the Windows File Explorer when using Anaconda. But we are working to have this functionality in a future version.

It will work by adding an entry to the Open with menu you can see when doing a mouse right-click over a file on the Explorer.

I have had a similar problem with another piece of software that I use.

My work around for this problem is to set the file association for .py files to C:\Anaconda\Scripts\spider-script.py via the Open with dialog. If you now try to open your File.py by double clicking you'll receive an error like

~\file.py is not a valid Win32 application.

This can be resolved by editing the spyder-script.py registry key:

HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-3559708500-1520960832-86631148-1002\Software\Classes\Applications\spyder-script.py\shell\open\command

and replacing the default value "C:\Anaconda\Scripts\spyder-script.py" %1 with "C:\Anaconda\python.exe" "C:\Anaconda\Scripts\spyder-script.py" %1. Use the search function for this key if the path isn't the same for your machine, and of course use the appropriate path for your python installation. spyder-script.py should now execute in a python shell.

From the docstring of ftype,

...Within an open command string, %0 or %1 are substituted with the file name being launched through the association.