16 January 2010

Add Program to "Open With" List on Windows XP

I was going to link file with program via "Open With Dialog Box" on windows XP, but program was not in list.

I used option
Click Browse, locate and then click the program that you want to use, and then click Open.
, but program was not added to list and I could not select it.

Problem was in wrong path to exe file in registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications.MyProgram

It happened while program was moved (or renamed) after it was installed and register records were created.

I got idea to check register entries after reading next tips:

Adding to Open With "Other Programs" list

How to change or select which program starts when you double-click a file in Windows XP


How to Remove Programs from the "Open With" List
support
The programs on the Open With list for each file type are independent of that file's registered program(s). To remove items from this list, locate the following registry key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\FileExts\.extension\OpenWithList
NOTE: The above registry key is one path, it has been wrapped for readability.

where extension is the file extension for the file type whose Open With list you want to modify. Delete the value in this key that represents the program to be removed from the Open With list.

15 January 2010

No more MSTSC.exe /CONSOLE

Windows XP Service Pack 3 - No more MSTSC.exe /CONSOLE

Thats’ right. No more /console switch on the Windows Remote Desktop Connection tool, MSTSC.exe, starting from Windows XP Service Pack 3, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008.

This is because of the design enhancements in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, by virtue of which you cannot connect to Session 0, which is the default session. Running services and user applications together in Session 0 poses a security risk because services in Session 0 run at elevated privileges and therefore can be targeted by malware that attack by attempting and exploiting a privilege escalation.


Notice that the /console option is not available, but there is a /admin option. The /admin option lets you connect to Session 0 on a remote computer that doesn’t have Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3 or Windows Server 2008 or later installed.

Workaround
You use the /admin switch to connect to an existing session on a remote machine.
In short, you can do everything you did with /console except connecting to session 0.

roll back the files
... replace the XPsp3 MSTSC.EXE with MSTSC.EXE Version 5.1 from an XPsp2 machine and both applications now work with the /console switch. There was no need to uninstall XPsp3. I ALSO replaced the MSTSCAX.DLL, MSTSHST.DLL, and MSTSMMC.DLL with the XPsp2 copies. These are all located in SYSTEM32. SteveK