Mac's Open-with Menu

[Shunyata]

Running v8 and Mountain Lion with Win 7 Home.

Right-click a file and select Open With. I'm seeing numerous entries for the same application but different versions. For example, three versions of Firefox and two for Photoshop are listed. This can be reset using Terminal but the problem returns when you restart the Mac. This happens whether or not the VM is running.

I've tried turning off application sharing in the VM config area, in both directions, and it makes no difference. I'm thinking this is being caused by Parallels but don't know for sure.

Anyone else seen this?

Phil

 

[FxP]

Yep I have the same problem and I'm pissed off. Parallels keeps messing up with Mac OS Finder every time you enable application sharing. Solution is to disable application sharing through the VM settings and then clean the Mac OS Finder following this procedure f.e. http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/remove-duplicate-applications-from-open-with.htm
You need to disable app sharing for all your VM, if a single has it enabled then Parallels with pollute your Finder "Open with" menu again.
On a related note, with version 8 you can still run a VM in coherent mode without applications sharing. Be advised that with version 9 it is no longer possible anymore. Either you segregate your VM from Mac OS X or you enable application sharing to have coherent mode and then have your Finder restarting every time you launch Parallels. And have your Finder "Open with" menu all f*cked up with countless Windows application. The more Windows VM you have the more painful it is. Answer from Parallels support:

In the previous versions of Parallels Desktop there were two Coherence modes: Crystal and non-Crystal. While using Crystal, the level of integration between virtual machine and Mac is increased; the Application Sharing is required in Crystal. So, you were able to disable Crystal and use Coherence without Application Sharing.
In the Parallels Desktop 9 there is no longer division between Crystal and non-Crystal modes. There is only Coherence which is required application sharing. This is by design.

If you want to run your VM side-by-side without having your Finder being all messed up you have two options: 1° Stick to Parallels v8 and do not upgrade to v9 or 2° Switch to VMware Fusion. As I've already upgraded to v9 if I'm doomed with loosing time better be with switching to Fusion than downgrading to v8.

Hopefully someone at Parallels will come across this thread...

Good luck with your menus

 

[Shunyata]

As it turned out, Parallels was not causing my problem. I had a volume mounted that was backed up using Carbon Copy Cloner and the volume contained copies of all my Mac applications. So the Finder would build the Open With list for all available applications, located on all volumes, hence the duplicates. You have to eject the volume and reboot to reset the Open With listing.