SPSS 15 and the "Send To" list

[Richard Ristow]

As I recently wrote, I'm running with both 14 and 15 installed, 14
being the default version. (I worked THAT one out; thanks, Richard
Oliver.)

I've put both SPSS 14 and SPSS 15 on my list of programs that you can
"Send To" (this is Windows XP). Sending a syntax file to SPSS 15 works;
sending a second one also works, EXCEPT the new one opens a separate
instance of SPSS 15. Confused the dickens out of me until I figured it
out.

Does anybody know a way to make an additional "sent to" file open in
the *same* instance if SPSS? Other Windows programs can work that way;
NoteTab, the editor I mostly use, to name one.

-Many thanks,
  Richard Ristow

[Richard Ristow]

At 05:25 PM 1/17/2007, I wrote:

>I've put SPSS 15 on my list of programs that you can "Send To" (this
>is Windows XP). If you send a file to SPSS 15, it opens it; but if you
>send another one, it also opens it, but *IN ANOTHER INSTANCE* of SPSS
>15. This is driving me bats.

Well, I submitted this to tech support. The response is,

>The consensus is that SPSS is doing what Send To is designed to
>do.  It is launching  multiple sessions with spsswin.exe.  If you use
>the Open With option, you do get multiple files in one session.

What's to say? I'd like the other, very much, but if that's how it
goes, it is. I haven't yet managed to get SPSS 14 and SPSS 15 to
appear, both, and labeled as such, on my Open With menu, but I haven't
looked hard at that, yet.

Tech Support also noted,

>The Send To is a Windows feature that SPSS cannot modify.

which dives into Windows a lot deeper than I can go. It surprises me
that it's immutable, though, because I also have the editor NoteTab on
my Send To menu; and there, multiple Sent files do open in windows
(tabs, in NoteTab) of the same instance of the program.

I'll post if I find any work-arounds that seem to help.

-Cheers, and onward,
  Richard