How to find location of program in "Open With" list?

Question

I need to remove a program in the Open with list (I need to replace a custom program with a newer version and I don't remember where the .exe file is).

How would I be able to find the location of this program on my computer?

For some reason I cannot find it with application name, even when searching all .exe file. There is no installer for the program, it's just an .exe you put where you want.

Answer 1

The "Open With…" list is stored in the registry in two separate keys. One key stores the list of applications to use for a particular file extension and the other stores the location of a particular application.

You can either look them up in regedit.exe (which I don't suggest as you could accidentally make a change to the registry) or you can query them from the command line:

> reg query HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.php\OpenWithList

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.php\OpenWithList
    a    REG_SZ    Dreamweaver.exe
    MRUList    REG_SZ    ba
    b    REG_SZ    notepad++.exe


> reg query HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\notepad++.exe\shell\open\command /ve

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\notepad++.exe\shell\open\command
    (Default)    REG_SZ    "C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe" "%1"

I've written a very short batch file to do most of the legwork:

@echo off
SET _Ext=%~1
IF "%_Ext%"=="" SET /P _Ext=Enter file extension to query: 
for /f "tokens=2*" %%a in ('reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\%_Ext%\OpenWithList" ^| FIND /v "MRUList"') do (
    echo|set /p=%%b: 
    for /f "tokens=2*" %%g in ('reg query "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\%%b\shell\open\command" /ve ^| FIND /v "MRUList"') do (
        echo %%h
    )
)