How to prevent Windows apps from appearing in the "Open With" contextual menu?

[alsoares]

Ok, I just upgraded to Fusion 2.0 from 1.3, and I noticed the Shared Applications feature where I can open a file directly from Finder on a Win application. When I right-click some file, e.g. an mp3 file, Windows Media Player shows up as one of the choices of apps in the "Open With" menu.

The problem is, I DON'T want this to happen. I don't want Windows apps to show in the "Open With" menu. I already disabled Shared Applications on all Virtual Machines but it didn't remove the apps from the menu.

Anyone knows how I can do that?

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

Virtual Machine Settings > Sharing

Then delete the Applications folder within the Virtual Machine Package.

[alsoares]

Works like a charm. Thanks! 😃

[JonathanWW]

Is there any way of customising which Windows programs appears in the context menu?

[alsoares]

I'd guess you would leave on the Applications folder as described above only the applications you want to appear in the contextual menu. You may have to issue a terminal command to force a rebuild of the LaunchServices database in order to reflect the changes in the actual menu.

[kclevenger]

Ah, thank you! Sharing is disabled for the VM (v2.0) so I didn't bother to look under the Sharing item in the settings.

[mcx]

same problem here, though not with a virtual machine but a Boot Camp partition. what to do in that case?

edit: actually, found it in ~/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/%2Fdev%2Fdisk0/Boot Camp partition.vmwarevm

thanks to all!

[Misfire]

I did all this, and while I got rid of a great many menu entries associated with applications in my Windows 2000 and BootCamp (XP) VMs, a number of BootCamp entries remain. How can I clean these out?

[ehutzelman]

I'm trying to disable this in Fusion v3, but I'm not finding the setting. I've gone to both "Sharing" and "Applications" under the virtual machine settings, and everything is disabled. However, the "Open With" in Mac OSX is still showing windows programs in the list.

[billygoatgruff]

Thanks!

In Vmware Fusion 3, I had to open 'settings' for each windows vm, select 'Applications', click 'Default Applications', and unchecked the boxes for 'Open you Mac file and web links using Windows applications' and 'Open your Windows files and web links using Mac applications'.  I prefer to keep my virtual machine separate.

I can see some people liking the whole "Fusion' idea where Windows apps show up on the Mac desktop as separate windows, and the "Windows" desktop is hidden, making it look seamless.  I just prefer deciding for myself when to fire up a virtual machine.

[WoodyZ]

billygoatgruff wrote: I prefer to keep my virtual machine separate.

I do as well! I keep all of the integration related features turned off too.