Shareaza

I installed Shareaza 2.6.0.0 for 64bit systems on a Windows 8 computer.

During the installation I turned off all torrent association features.

Then, I went to the Shareaza settings and turned off all torrent association features in Settings\Web, as well as the magnet association features.

After this I closed Shareaza completely.

Then, I specified in Windows that torrent are to be opened with utorrent instead of Shareaza.

I then opened utorrent and associated magnet links with utorrent.

When I click on a magnet link, it asks me if I want to use utorrent. I click yes.

However, for some unknown reason it is Shareaza that gets the torrent! Somehow, Shareaza "steals" the magnet link from utorrent, even with all the Shareaza magnet link options turned off!

I tried everything to stop Shareaza from getting the magnet link but nothing works! Can anyone help???

Ooops, what the reason ?

Most of these programs do more damage than they actually do good. Also, there is a hell of a lot of viruses that come in the disguise of such programs.

What would be interesting is whether guillaume666 actually reinstalled uTorrent after he had set up Shareaza to not to take magnets/torrents. Usually installing the program that shall in the end get the link/file association last does the trick.

Nope, I reinstalled utorrent and it still doesn't work!

Note that .torrent files are opened correctly, it is magnet links that do not work.

Is there nothing within the advanced settings of your browser to allow you to set the application to handle specific link types?

Apologies for the necropost.

I tried to change the protocol by setting the default app in windows control panel settings - the checkbox for magnet was ticked and grayed out.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/18539/windows-7-change-default-programs


So. time to get my hands dirty in the registry.

[disclaimer]
BE WARNED - BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY OR AT LEAST THE KEY I'M TALKING ABOUT FIRST!!11!
If you're even the slightest bit squeamish about regediting, walk away now. The advice in this post is purely that, advice. If you bork your windows machine - don't blame me. I have written this as generically as possible but clearly I use Halite bitorrent client
[/disclaimer]

1) Windows Key + R, type "regedit", press enter, click yes when prompted.

2) Navigate to "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\magnet"

3) Change "AppUserModelID" to the name of your torrent app

4) Doulble click on the default key in DefaultIcon and change to "C:\Program Files\Halite\Halite.exe" (or wherever your installation path of your torrent application is)

5) Navigate to "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\magnet\shell\open\command", change the default to "C:\Program Files\Halite\Halite.exe" or install path of your torrent app...

6) Goto "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\magnet\shell\open\ddeexec" and change "WindowClassName" to the name of your torrent app in front of the "MainWnd". This may not work depending on what setting in the registry your app has. It's purely to open the window when you click on the link.

7) Navigate to "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\magnet\shell\open\ddeexec\Application" and change default to the name of your torrent app.

That should be it. Now when you click on a magnet link it should go straight to your torrent client. This saved me having to uninstall Shareaza...

Most simple workaround to this Shareaza bug is to change web browser settings to handle magnet links by other application. In Firefox it is done in Options/Applications, magnet. Other browsers google: change browsername protocol association OR handling