How to Remove “Always Use the Selected Program” Option From Open With Dialog

© Ramesh Srinivasan | Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP | 13th August 2009

The Open With dialog in Windows allows you to open a file using different programs. Also, you can create or change the file type association by selecting the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox in the Open With dialog. Sometimes, users wrongly associate file types and end up having to fix the associations manually. To prevent this, you can remove the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox so that file type association using Open With dialog is not possible.

1. Launch Regedit.exe and navigate to the following branch:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer

Note: If the above branch does not exist, you need to create it manually.

2. Create a new DWORD value named NoFileAssociate

3. Double-click NoFileAssociate and set its data to 1

4. Exit the Registry Editor.

The above registry change effects the current user account only. To implement the change for all users (machine-wide), create the NoFileAssociate value in the following branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer

Additional Information

The above edit when used in Windows 2000/XP, results in a grayed out "Always use the selected program…" checkbox. Whereas in Windows Vista & Windows 7, the checkbox is removed completely.

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4 Comments

  1. guest
    said this on Saturday, January 28th 2012 7:22 am

    Thanks but

    how about if we want just to undo the last association so that the windows would open the same dialog box as before?

    I accidentally associated a file and now I want it to be not associated with any programs. what should i do then in Vista?

  2. Ed
    said this on Wednesday, April 27th 2011 3:19 am

    This is incredibly useful! It’s good to know that there’s a way to remove a ‘feature’ of Windows that has been causing problems for many years (I found a thread from the year 2000 describing exactly the same problem!)

    Thanks :D

  3. John Dangerbrooks
    said this on Saturday, November 28th 2009 11:04 pm

    Last time I checked, In XP, it is always checked! So, you have inadvertently found a way to uncheck it by default!

  4. John Dangerbrooks
    said this on Thursday, August 20th 2009 3:01 pm

    THANKS A BUNCH!

    After a long time of visiting your blog, finally you posted something useful.

    I hope you don’t take it personally, but you more often post tips about restricting or removing features.

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