Why is being the default so important? Because people don??™t change the
defaults.
As a result, software companies??”Microsoft included??”make a habit out of
steamrolling over your preferences to promote their own products. Luckily,
you have a defense, and it takes place in the Registry.
There are basically two approaches to protecting your file types: you can
back them up so they can be restored in case they??™re ever overwritten, and
you can ???lock??? them, preventing such changes in the first place.
File Type Doctor shows context menu shell extensions associated with the
selected file type in italicized font. Although you can??™t edit them (you??™ll need
their source code and development software like Visual Studio for that), you
can remove their context menus by selecting them and clicking Remove. This
won??™t unregister the extension, it??™ll just disconnect it from the selected file
type, and likely fix the problem you??™re having. (Or, just do it to remove clutter.)
You can also right-click a shell extension in File Type Doctor to search
the Registry or the Web for its Class ID or other related information to learn
more about it.
To list all the shell extensions installed on your PC, use ShellExView, available
for free from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html.
140 | Chapter 3: The Registry
There??™s actually a third way to protect your file types, by way
of Vista??™s UserChoice feature explained the ???The Evils of
UserChoice??? sidebar, earlier in this chapter.
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