It's actually much easier to use msconfig to trash it. (Well, if you're used to msconfig.)
Once upon a time, you could right-click on the Real icon and choose "disable".
Now, RealNetworks has made is purposely difficult to get rid of the icon. Each new version of RealPlayer seems to add another new dialog box to the process, in order to make the option as difficult to find as possible. In the latest version, the relevant menu item has changed from "Disable" to "Preferences", and once in the Preferences dialog, the user must determine that he is looking for the "SmartCenter" button, click it, read the dialog that pops up, choose the "turn the darn thing off" option, at which point another dialog box pops up warning of the impending apocalypse that will result from the selection of the aforementioned option... and when the user figures out that "yes", this is what I really want to do, he must confirm that choice, OK the SmartCenter dialog, OK the Preferences dialog, and then close RealPlayer, which in the meantime has decided to launch itself for no apparant reason. No wonder everyone I know who doesn't have a PhD in Computer Engineering still has the Real icon in their system tray.
In the most recent versions of Windows, you don't even have to hold down shift to get the Open With option. Even the Open With item itself has been improved -- it's now a submenu listing a number of programs that may be used to open the file. If the desired program isn't on the list, there is a "Choose Program..." option, which allows the user to choose any program to open the file. From then on, the chosen program will appear in the "Open With" menu, so users never have to go through the choose program dialog again. The choose program dialog also has a "always use this program to open this type of file" checkbox.
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It's actually much easier to use msconfig to trash it. (Well, if you're used to msconfig.) Once upon a time, you could right-click on the Real icon and choose "disable". Now, RealNetworks has made is purposely difficult to get rid of the icon. Each new version of RealPlayer seems to add another new dialog box to the process, in order to make the option as difficult to find as possible. In the latest version, the relevant menu item has changed from "Disable" to "Preferences", and once in the Preferences dialog, the user must determine that he is looking for the "SmartCenter" button, click it, read the dialog that pops up, choose the "turn the darn thing off" option, at which point another dialog box pops up warning of the impending apocalypse that will result from the selection of the aforementioned option... and when the user figures out that "yes", this is what I really want to do, he must confirm that choice, OK the SmartCenter dialog, OK the Preferences dialog, and then close RealPlayer, which in the meantime has decided to launch itself for no apparant reason. No wonder everyone I know who doesn't have a PhD in Computer Engineering still has the Real icon in their system tray.
In the most recent versions of Windows, you don't even have to hold down shift to get the Open With option. Even the Open With item itself has been improved -- it's now a submenu listing a number of programs that may be used to open the file. If the desired program isn't on the list, there is a "Choose Program..." option, which allows the user to choose any program to open the file. From then on, the chosen program will appear in the "Open With" menu, so users never have to go through the choose program dialog again. The choose program dialog also has a "always use this program to open this type of file" checkbox.