[Tutorial] Solving .reg from opening with Notepad

[FearlessX]

Hello, this is my first tutorial and it is about solving the .reg opening with Notepad. You might first experience it with Moonlight Engine where you had to double click the .reg file. I personally had this experience before and i solved it, and i will show you how to solve it.

Note: Only a few people might have this problem. It is caused by a virus/malware. Many trojan horses, viruses and other malwares make changes to the registry. They may affect one or more of the shellopencommand keys. By changing these keys they can make themselves be executed each time that you 'open' a certain type of file e.g. if they modified the exefileshellopencommand key then the trojan will be invoked every time you start any executable (.exe) file. Same thing can happen with registry (.reg) file.

This tutorial will solve not only .reg opening with notepad but .exe, .com, .bat, .pif, .scr from opening with notepad.

One instance of solving .reg opening with notepad is with a simple way which most users are familiar with is opening with Regedit.exe.

All you need to do is the following:
1. Click Start, Run, type in: RegEdit.exe
2. In Registry Editor click File, Import, then browse to the .reg file and click okay.
3. Done!

However that way, you need to do it all the time with different .reg so unless you want to repetitively do the same process over again, there is another which solves it with one go.

Download UnhookExecOpen.inf from this thread.

After downloading it, right-click on the file and select 'install'. This way it will not display any success message but your registry editor will work now again.

What UnhookExecOpen does is it will simply reset the shell open command for executable files:
.exe, .com, .bat, .pif, .scr (screensavers!)
and also for .reg files (registry data files).

Further on it will re-enable editing the registry altogether and make sure that the application associated with registry batch files (*.reg) is indeed the official registry editor and not some trojan horse.

Well thats it, I hoped I solved your problem. Remember it doesnt affect most of you, but it will affect a small minority of you, including myself.

-Mods, if this is in the wrong section please move it, i don't know where it goes.

Virus Scan of UnhookExecOpen.inf:
File: UnHookExecOpen.inf
Status:
OK
MD5: f77f8599a54b94239881efe7731242ff
Packers detected:
-
Bit9 reports: File not found
Scanner results
Scan taken on 30 Jan 2008 10:16:03 (GMT)
A-Squared
Found nothing
AntiVir
Found nothing
ArcaVir
Found nothing
Avast
Found nothing
AVG Antivirus
Found nothing
BitDefender
Found nothing
ClamAV
Found nothing
CPsecure
Found nothing
Dr.Web
Found nothing
F-Prot Antivirus
Found nothing
F-Secure Anti-Virus
Found nothing
Fortinet
Found nothing
Ikarus
Found nothing
Kaspersky Anti-Virus
Found nothing
NOD32
Found nothing
Norman Virus Control
Found nothing
Panda Antivirus
Found nothing
Rising Antivirus
Found nothing
Sophos Antivirus
Found nothing
VirusBuster
Found nothing
VBA32
Found nothing

[ktrg]

Very nice tutorial. Why didn't you make it 2 days earlier? So i didn't had to go searching around in google for hours.

[FearlessX]

Lol sorry :P Yeah i saw people on CEF and on MPC with this trouble. I also had this problem to and well i found the solution. Hope this helped those people who had this problem, it definitely helped me :)

[That Asian Guy]

nice tutorial

personally, i would prefer using a registry fixer/cleaner (http://www.regcure.com/)

[scruie]

Never noticed this before. Nice tut. But to be honest you can change the behaviour easily manually by altering file associations. Or, use TweakUI for XP.

Personally, all my .reg files open in notepad first so I can check the contents. Afterwards a simple right mouse click on the file allows me to merge in the registry.

[FearlessX]

Even when the problem happened, i tried right clicking it and click 'Merge' but nothing happened, just still opened up in notepad.

I also have Registry Mechanic 7.0 and well even though it fixed my registry and cleaned up many bad files, it never fixed my problem with merging a .reg file.

[thaicoures3]

Why would you want a .reg file to merge into the Registry immediately? As far as I'm concerned...that could do a ton of damage as the Registry is pretty much the center of all PCs. Better to just open it in notepad first and check it.
So best to have double click open it in notepad (in case you accidentally double click it and click enter).

[FearlessX]

People want to merge the .reg into the registry immediately so they can hack MS with MLE because they are impatient. No point opening up with the notepad because to most people its mostly junk with numbers and letters which mean nothing to an average pc user.

Only those people who are advanced in computing need to view it with notepad because they can actually do something with the registry in notepad e.g changing it for something they might be helpful.

Also it wouldn't damage your registry as installing something puts a .reg into your registry anyway. I've install many things and well my PC is running fine. Best way to make sure your registry is fine is running a Registry Cleaner which i do frequently.

By the way, is double clicking the .reg then saying yes the same thing as merging a .reg?

[scruie]

By the way, is double clicking the .reg then saying yes the same thing as merging a .reg?

Yes, it is. If, I remember correctly it says something like 'add to registry'.

[thaicoures3]

Also it wouldn't damage your registry as installing something puts a .reg into your registry anyway. I've install many things and well my PC is running fine. Best way to make sure your registry is fine is running a Registry Cleaner which i do frequently.

By the way, is double clicking the .reg then saying yes the same thing as merging a .reg?

Yes it does that also, but some people put malicious code into a .reg file and basically what happens is they can screw Internet explorer over so badly that it won't open any websites or they can screw up other settings (visual, performance, registration information, make your Windows "un-genuine" by destroying the registration info, add stuff to startup which could slow down your computer, and possibly even get rid of your password to your admin account)...
If the .reg is malicious...
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.
Quote from Microsoft...Basically, if your registry breaks, your PC breaks...

[FearlessX]

Oh I see now. Hmm yeah if the registry file if malicious, best not to merge it into your registry. Most times it isn't infected with a virus, but to make sure, always have a good Antivirus program.

But yeah, if you modify the registry using Registry Editor or 'notepad' and your not skilled in that area, chances are your computer is gonna suffer terribly.

[FearlessX]

Edit: Edited the file so now you don't need to download it through rapidshare, instead i put the file in a rar and attached it through MPC's attachment system.

[pvpuser]

err dude i get still get a error.. it's say disk is full something like that.. wht should i do??