How do you delete from list of right click items you don't want touse to open programs?

  • Thread starter Thread starter The Old Fart
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The Old Fart

When you right click you can be offered which program to open that file
with, provided that you had a file association set up in the first. How
do you delete items from the right click if you no longer want to use
some items that are on the list?
 
Clear unwanted items in 'Open With' lists

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When right-clicking a file you may see an option called 'Open With',
which lists few programs on you computer to open the file with. To
clear this list, or to remove the unwanted applications from the list
(for the said file-type), follow these steps.

Go to Start => Run and type in "regedit" {without the quotes)

Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts

Find the extension you wish to edit and click on the "+" sign to expand
'OpenWithList'

(In the right-hand pane, you will see a list with the programs, like
"paint.exe", "notepad.exe" etc )

First, for safety, Go to File => Export to backup the registry. Save to
a suitable location.

Right-click on the program you want to delete and click on 'Delete'

--------------------------------------------------------------------

If some items may still show up in the 'Open With' listings, these may
be stored in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT registry key. These settings affect
all users. You can remove the entries by navigating to the particular
filetype's key setting:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xxx\OpenWithList

where xxx is the file extension.

Repeat as above to remove the programs you don't want.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Even if this is edited, Windows may still show some default 'Open With'
listings. Depending on the file type, the 'Open With' listing is
produced from the sub-keys under this key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\<filetype>\

But ... you probably don't want to mess with these. If you have to,
repeat as above to delete the programs you don't want.
 
Claymore said:
Clear unwanted items in 'Open With' lists

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When right-clicking a file you may see an option called 'Open With',
which lists few programs on you computer to open the file with. To
clear this list, or to remove the unwanted applications from the list
(for the said file-type), follow these steps.

Go to Start => Run and type in "regedit" {without the quotes)

Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts

Find the extension you wish to edit and click on the "+" sign to expand
'OpenWithList'

(In the right-hand pane, you will see a list with the programs, like
"paint.exe", "notepad.exe" etc )

First, for safety, Go to File => Export to backup the registry. Save to
a suitable location.

Right-click on the program you want to delete and click on 'Delete'

--------------------------------------------------------------------

If some items may still show up in the 'Open With' listings, these may
be stored in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT registry key. These settings affect
all users. You can remove the entries by navigating to the particular
filetype's key setting:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xxx\OpenWithList

where xxx is the file extension.

Repeat as above to remove the programs you don't want.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Even if this is edited, Windows may still show some default 'Open With'
listings. Depending on the file type, the 'Open With' listing is
produced from the sub-keys under this key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\<filetype>\

But ... you probably don't want to mess with these. If you have to,
repeat as above to delete the programs you don't want.
Click to expand...
That's good thank you. Can I also set the sequence they appear on the
open with list or does one just have to delete them all for an extension
& then add them back one at a time?
 
Fartus provectus,

I checked the order that programs are listed in "Open With". It doesn't
match the order of listing in the key(s) I gave earlier. It seems - on
my machine at least - that the order is determined by the order in
which the programs were installed.

p.s. You can change the name that describes the program - sometimes
they have odd names. The relevant Registry key is:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ShellNoRoam\MUICache

The Program names are listed in the right-hand pane.
 
I just went through an arduous search to rename three programs in the
MUICache list. I would change the names (two programs had the same name, and
the name of the other had a leading space which caused it to be listed at the
top of the "Choose Program" list instead of in its alphabetical place.) Two
or three days after I renamed them in the Registry (not usually after a
single reboot) they had reverted to the original names. I finally had to
download a Resource Editor ("Resource Tuner") which I used to change the
Description item in the file properties of the program executable.

I have also been adjusting the entries in the OpenWith lists, and found that
most of the help a Google search provided never told me that I might also
have to delete some of the entries in the OpenWithProgID list (adjacent to
the OpenWithList) in the registry. It is not always obvious what you need to
delete either. In some cases I took a trial and error approach after
carefully backing up the registry.

Regards,
Buck
 
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