Blank app name in "open with ..." list

who where wrote in
news::

From somewhere at some time in the past (I don't use this all that
often) a new entry has appeared at the top of the app-list in the
"open with ..." selection box. It has the generic .exe icon (white
box with blue title bar at the top) and a blank name.

If I select say a .txt file on the desktop and try to open it with
this blank-named app, I get a WinExploder window showing C:\ - and NOT
in the normally selected view options either.

While it (presumably) isn't doing any harm, I would like to get rid of
it. But how - there is of course no corresponding entry in the
ControlPanel->Add/RemovePrograms list.

Got to work backwards to fix that one. Start by exporting the whole registry
to a file on the destop.

Open in a text editor. A good one, Notepad won't touch this...

Search for this exact string:
\shell\open\command]

Look at the line immediately below each occurence (of many) that you will
find. Look for anything that does not look like a standard path.
@="D:\\ZoodleWurdle.exe %1" Is a valid path, it has a double ('escaped')
backslash in it, meaning a single one will appear correctly in the registry
editor if you look at it there. The %1 passes the filename you're asking it
to handle. Most if not all occurences will be like this, so look for one that
is not. If the actual file a valid path points to is absent, you'll get an
access error message, not what you saw.

This broken path thing WILL cause the event you saw, a basic Explorer view of
the root of the install drive (Usually C:\), but there may be other ways. If
you DO find some broken path, look at the base of the branch, the bit
immediately before \shell\open\command] and search for that in the registry
editor. You should find two occurences (plus at least one duplicate of each
in another part of the registry). The first is the filetype (rooted as .lll
or some such, basically the file extension), the second is the association,
rooted by the specific name you found immediately before \shell\open\command]
which you just searched for. Delete both branches, and the blank entry will
also vanish.

When you figure out what original association broke, and want it back, set it
up as normal, using Open With, etc...