purge "open with"

I despise all software that shoves itself into the "open with" list. How do I edit that list and get rid of stuff that has no business being there? This is for Win2k and others.

 

(found with a groups.google search - hope it helps)

=============copy/paste================
From: Bill James (wgjames@mvps.org)
Subject: Re: "Open With" Add/Delete Programs
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.win95.general.discussion
Date: 2000/05/13

If a program is defined as the action for "Open" with any file
extension, it will show in the "Open with" dialog box. The program will be listed in the Registry as:

HKEY CLASSES ROOT\[filetype]\open\command

[filetype] is defined within the HKEY CLASSES ROOT Registry key for a
specific extension. For example, if you look at HKEY CLASSES ROOT\.txt
you see it defined as "txtfile ". Plug txtfile into the line shown above
and you see what program is used to open a .txt file (NotePad unless
changed).

So, to remove an item from the "Open with" list, you would have to remove all mentions of it for various file type. You can't just remove it without ******** up that file type, though, you need to change it to another program that will actually open that file type.

To add a program, it needs to be listed as the Open command for some files extension, even if it is a dummy file extension you set up (.xyz for example).

--

Bill James
Microsoft MVP DTS

==============end copy/paste=====================

If you want to try a registry edit to remove a particular program from the "open with" list, go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...sics_extending/fileassociations/fileassoc.asp
and click on the link,
Excluding an Application from the Open With Dialog Box

 

Thanks for your fast help!