How to Remove "Always use the selected program" Option from Open With Dialog

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

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

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!
anonymous

said this on Thursday, November 26th 2009 5:12 pm

Is there a way to keep it but make the checkbox unchecked by default in Vista/Windows 7? In XP it is not checked by default (good default setting) but in Vista and 7, it is (bad default)!
Boris

said this on Wednesday, August 26th 2009 9:55 pm

This has really bothered me in Windows 7.

Thanks for this tip!

Boris
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.