Removing the open with associations from Windows 7

I

iSteveT

Junior Member
I must remove the file associations from Windows 7 and the Mac side. It's driving me crazy. Can someone direct me to how to do this. I'm on Parallels 7. Thanx.
 
Do you mean you want to avoid opening files from Mac in Windows applications? you can change association manually (right click - get info), you can isolate Mac form Windows (in Configuration menu) - but it brings a lot of difficulties with further mac - windows communication.

Please specify what exact association you want to change?
 
Hi,
When I'm in Windows and right click on files I get the Mac versions popping up. I would like to be rid of all these file associations that Parallels has put in Windows. I often just use Windows via bootcamp and don't want these associations. How do I revert to no Mac associations in Windows and no Windows associations in the Mac side. I would like it back to no associations across platform. How do I do this? I don't want to manually change all file associations. This is not feasible. Thanx for the help.
 
Ok. Excellent. I made the change and am rebooting windows in parallels. Hopefully this will take care of the issue. Many thanx.
 
Ok. That's funny. Enabling the isolation feature now shows only mac apps in the windows open with from Parallels! Not quite what I had in mind. I just want windows only in windows and mac in mac. Is there some way to reverting everything to where it was before I installed Parallels? Windows opens windows apps, and Mac opens Mac. I don't want this mess that Parallels has made. Please help.
 
Isolate Windows - makes exactly what you said - Keep Windows in Windows and Mac in Mac.

I suppose there is something that you didn't tell causes the problem.

Please contact support - they will connect remotely to your Mac and fix it in place - faster and easier.

www.parallels.com/support/
 
Hmm. What a disaster. So does this support cost money? I'm a very experienced computer user. I should be able to solve this issue myself. Do you have any solutions papers describing how to solve this issue or forum threads? I certainly have no intention of buying tech support for this product. It's been installed for more than 30 days btw.
 
well I deleted the vm from my mac side and that has cleared the problem up for the mac but every single entry on the windows 7 64 side shows open with a mac app while in bootcamp. So, great advice. I can't believe that by version 7 this piece of crapware still doesn't allow a user to easily reverse system changes without having to have a support person log into your machine at the user's expense. Sorry this is just bad business and bad software.
 
I succeeded in removing this piece of malware from my machine. Here's what I did. 1) I ran Deleted the windows vm. 2) I ran the uninstaller. 3) I searched for completely remove Parallels 7 and ran all of the terminal strings. But of course the thing was still all over my open with folders in windows. 4) So, next I downloaded Wise Registry Cleaner (don't install the browser toolbar malware). Run this thing. 5) Download and run RegmagiK. Here's where things get tricky. I found most of the associations in the Users area under a long number and then Software > classes. Most of the strings were in there. Do a restore point on your machine. Now search inside that folder in RegmagiK and search for (Mac).exe and make it case sensitive. Delete everything in the search results. Look first. Run Registry Cleaner again to remove the empty keys. There will be thousands of them. Actually, I think you can just do a search through the whole reg file for the string I mentioned (Mac).exe make it case sensitive. Now you might still find some entries in the following location HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ FileExts \ . Find the file extension and delete the mac entry. Finally, yeah I know, search for services from the start menu. Look at the parallels services there in the list. One is probably still running. Cool, not. Right click on it, go to properties and hit disable for both of them. Now you are just about rid of this malware. Only an hour of your life. In conclusion, avoid this crapware Parallels desktop 7. Try to live with bootcamp or buy a $200 pc at your local electronics mass retailer. Sorry, but if you guys can't provide a way of restoring your machine back to where it was when you installed this, you don't deserve anyone's money. To add insult to injury you want me to pay for freakin service. Go fly a kite.
 
One more thing. Remove the folder %appdata%/roaming/parallels/ . It has the external app links in it I notice.
 
One more thing. Bear in mind I'm removing from a Bootcamp install. So if you have yours as a virtual machine only it will be different. There's one more thing you need to do. Go into the programs x86 or just programs folder if you're on 32 bit in windows and find the parallels folder. Inside there's a uninstall.bat file. Run that suck and it will remove a lot of the Windows stuff. Actually if you've read through this, I would start with this first and see how much of the open with associations are left. It may well remove them. Then run a reg cleaner to clean up. Finally this stuff is gone. Now why on earth doesn't this thing just uninstall properly from the get go if that's what you choose as a user. How totally annoying. Don't buy this product, and don't install it if you can avoid it.
 
Steve - future notice - support is free and i didn't give you any guidance cause seems like your system was kind of messy and needed to be treated individually - support could save you time, but i hope this experience may help someone else to solve similar issue.
 
I had the exact same problem with a Windows 7 64-bit Bootcamp installation that I tried to run in OSX via Parallels. I had major issues with it and immediately uninstalled everything that Parallels installs in Windows. I never realized how often I used the "open with" command in Windows until it was no longer usable because Parallels polluted the list of available programs with Mac programs, which is 100% useless because you can't open Mac applications in Windows when you're running Windows natively.

I was able to fix it in two steps:

1. Delete this folder in Windows: C:\Users\(your user name)\AppData\Roaming\parallels Note that your AppData folder is probably hidden. If you don't know how to unhide hidden folders, you shouldn't be reading this.

2. Run a registry cleaner. It should find all of the (now broken) "open with" registry entries. Tell it to fix the issue by deleting the references. I used a free program called CCleaner. I had to run it twice to fix all the errors it found.

Thanks for leaving me with a degraded Windows experience after I installed your software, Parallels. I'm switching back to Fusion.
 
It can be done a little faster - you need to open Configuration window in Parallels - go to Options - Applications and uncheck "Share Mac applications with Windows"
 
YanaYana said:
It can be done a little faster - you need to open Configuration window in Parallels - go to Options - Applications and uncheck "Share Mac applications with Windows"
Click to expand...

I have Parallels 7 for Mac (Build 7.0.15098) running on a Macbook Pro 13" i5 2.3GHz, 8GB Ram. I elected to do this update when prompted just today.

After the update I get the Mac apps showing up even though "Share Mac applications with Windows" was UNCHECKED prior to the update and remains UNCHECKED.

When I right-click on a file in Windows and select "Open WIth" I want to see ONLY Windows applications, just as it was BEFORE the upgrade.

How can I fix this and get the desired behaviour?

Thanks!
 
What do you want? to see Mac applications in the list? than you need to CHECK this option. If it is UNCHECKED - you are not supposed to see and Mac apps in Windows
 
YanaYana said:
What do you want? to see Mac applications in the list? than you need to CHECK this option. If it is UNCHECKED - you are not supposed to see and Mac apps in Windows
Click to expand...

I do not know how to be any clearer.

In Windows when I right-click on a file (say "abc.txt") and select "Open With" I want Windows to present me with ONLY windows applications. NOT ANY Mac applictions.

Is that clear?
 
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