Registering a program to show in the "Open With" list

Solution 1:

Worked for me (in WinXP)

1. regedit
2. search for the Key about VLC/VideoLAN inside the Key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\
3. delete the Key about VLC inside HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\
4. close regedit
5. try Open with... dialog like usual (browse for program, etc) them VLC media player will finally appear in the Open with dialog list

Solution 2:

See How to Add a Program to "Open With" in Vista and Windows 7 :

When you right click on a file and click Open With, a list of registered programs are displayed in the Open With window to choose from. This will show you how to register a program so that it will be added to the Open With list.

Solution 3:

The easiest way to create a file association is to drag a document (with the file extension you want to associate) onto the program you would like to open it with. The next time you click on the file with the right mouse button, the program will appear in the "open with" list.

Just to clarify the process of creating a file association:

First, find the file of the type you want to associate to a program.

Right click the icon and a menu will appear. Choose Open with… A window will open asking you to choose a program to open that file type.

Pick a program from the list.

If the program isn't on your list, choose Other to navigate to another file or program on your hard drive.

Solution 4:

This seems to be a LibreOffice specific thing. I reinstalled LibreOffice and voila! all the applications were available in the "Open with" list and it is now easy to associate file extensions. Thanks for everyone who offered general help. If I suspected an incomplete installation of LireOffice in the first place I would not have asked the question so generally. Maybe this case can help someone else who have this kind of trouble after installing LibreOffice before uninstalling OpenOffice.