The message “Windows cannot open this file2 is always displayed when a user tries to execute a file with a file extension unknown to Windows. Windows is giving the user the option to search the Internet for clues on how to handle that file or pick a software from the list of installed applications of this computer.
I never – and I really mean never – experienced a successful search when using the Internet search. I decided to get rid of it completely to be able to pick a software from my computer at once. If that would still pose problems I would simply use a search engine to research a software for this file extension.
The Registry needs to be edited again to change this behavior. I’m sure some of you know a software that can do it but as always, I like it the hard way and describe the manual way.
Press Windows R, enter regedit in the Run window and hit enter. Now navigate to the key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
\Software
\Microsoft
\Windows
\CurrentVersion
\Explorer
and create a new Dword with the name InternetOpenWith. Close the Registry afterwards and test it by renaming a file extension to an unknown one. You will witness that the option to search the Internet will not be shown anymore for unknown file extensions. The Open With dialog window will be shown instead instantly.
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12 Responses to “Windows cannot open this file”
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[...] the extra step of having to choose to specify the application you want to use is annoying. Here’s how to disable it (read the comments section for Vista [...]
man, i really wanted this to work.
did you possibly leave out something in the dword config, martin?
Archer no everything is like it worked on my system. Did you create a Dword and name it InternetOpenWith ? The value is 0 by default as it should be.
You can try to set it for all users instead: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\Software
\Microsoft
\Windows
\CurrentVersion
\Explorer
and create the Dword InternetOpenWith. Again the default value should be 0 for the newly created key. If it is set to another value change it to 0. Try rebooting the computer as well, maybe that helps ?
damn i’m stupid!
left the r out of internet…
works like a charm, martin.
martin’s the man, people. please disregard my previous comments.
It would be much more usefull if u make a simple reg file to download :)
Then I could use it next time I install Windows.
Awesome !! Works like it should ..
Thanks for the tip, now I finally got rid of a very annoying feature.
this didnt work for me at all… i got “cant open file… ” whatever i typed on the list. It cant even open the “regedit” either.. my computer must have BIG issues I even tried this in safe mode… any other help please??
Did someone have success with Windows Vista (Enterprise)? It does not work with my machine… Any other suggestions?
Thank you very much.
I found a solution. For Vista:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SOFTWARE
\Microsoft
\Windows
\CurrentVersion
\Policies
\Explorer
DWORD Value
Name: NoInternetOpenWith
Value: 1
oh my god! it works! at last the stupid dialog its gone! ive been looking for this for a long time! thank you! thank you! thank you! one less annoyance to have to worry about! thank you again! really useful!