How to assign Outlook as default handler for .ics files?

This Windows 10 is getting crappier and crappier!

Apparently due to some recent Windows 10 update the default application to handle .ics (calendar) files is suddenly set to the Windows 10 Calendar app. Since I never use that crappy app I wanted to assign this back to Outlook 2016, which I am using as my day-to-day PIM. But when I try to assign the default for this file type back to Outlook the default application dialog only displays the options "Calendar" and "Search the store for an application". There used to be a link "choose another application" here, that would allow to assign the file type to any locally installed application, but that link is gone! :-O
So, how to I re-assign this .ics file type back to Outlook 2016???

No - that's my point. The option "Look for another app on this PC" is missing!
I can only choose that dreaded Calendar app or "Look for an app in the store", neither of which fits my bill.

OK - I have meanwhile uninstalled that Calendar app. Now the entry in the file type list reads "Choose a default" but when I click that I now ONLY have "Look for an app in the store". This is such a stupid system!
Why was this file type ever re-assigned in the first place? This worked perfectly? Why does MS try to shove these damned Metro apps down our throat???

I am running Window 10 Pro v1703 (Build 15063.447) with Office Professional Plus 2016.
Until a couple of weeks ago downloading a .ics file from a webpage worked perfectly - it opened outlook and entered the calendar entry into the calendar and I only had to confirm and save it.

Since a week or so, doing the same suddenly opened this Calendar app. After I now uninstalled Calendar I now get:







stuck...


These are the two approaches I tried to fix this:

1st approach:

stuck again.


2nd approach:




same as above -stuck again...

I have passed by that option as well, but unfortunately Outlook s not listed in this view. :-(

What finally did the trick was that I hammered this association into the registry.
The key "Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.ics" had the value "ics_auto_file" and so I changed the value of key "Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ics_auto_file\shell\open\command" to read:

Code:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\Outlook.exe" /ical "%1"

The /cal option is a flag to tell Outlook to open the argument as an ics or ical file.

Now things are back to normal, but in a decent OS such registry hacks definitely should not be necessary!