When you try to open a file in Vista and the OS doesn’t recognize the file extension because it’s not associated with an installed program, a dialog box pops up that gives you the option to "Use the Web service to find the correct program" or "Select a program from a list of installed programs." Most of us want to do the latter, and so you have to go through that extra click to get to your list of programs.

If you don’t ever want to use the Web service and would like to just be presented with the list of programs immediately when you try to open an unknown file type, the following registry edit will do it:

1. Open your registry editor (regedit) and navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer
2. Right click on an empty area in the right details pane and select New | DWORD Value
3. Name the new value NoInternetOpenWith
4. Double click the new value and set its data value to 1

The change should take effect immediately without a restart. If you ever decide you want that Web service option back, just set the value on the key you created above to 0.