How to remove unwanted programs from Open With option in windows XP?

When you right click on a file ,one of the options you see is “Open With”.These usually contains what windows thinks are valid Programs to open particular file types.Now sometimes when you have bad installers or uninstallers,some programs leave their mark on this context menu.Basically if you want to clean out this long list of junk that accumulates here ,you have to edit the registry.

Open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current version\Explorer\FileExts

Now for example if you have to remove programs from the Open With menu for AVI files find the extension on the left that corresponds to the AVI files,and click on the + sign to expand it and find the “OpenWith List”key.In the right pane you should see a list of programs ,such as “wmplayer.exe,”notepad.exe”,”mspaint.exe” etc.Select the ones you don’t want and delete them.

Next navigate to HKEY_CLASSICS_ROOT and find the same extension .Again navigate to “OpenWith List” key and delete the unwanted programs.This key is where Windows reads from when using the All Users Profile .Now you will only see the programs that you want in the Open With List!!