Help links always open in Internet Explorer

Post by **nikos** » 2009 Dec 28, 06:27

this registry hack will only work for help links, not these videos
the only solution for the video links is to right click on them, "copy shortcut" then paste it to the addressbar of your default browser

wperkins99 · Post by **wperkins99** » 2009 Dec 28, 15:33

Thanks for the response. I thought you might say as much; just had to check.

It's really no big deal to me. While I would prefer that links open in my default browser, I've accepted that some are essentially "hard coded" to open IE.

Robert2 · Post by **Robert2** » 2009 Dec 29, 06:31

wperkins99 wrote:While I would prefer that links open in my default browser, I've accepted that some are essentially "hard coded" to open IE.

Hi,
There is nothing “hard-coded” about these links opening in IE unless you have a version of IE older than IE8.
You never said which version of IE you have. If it’s older than IE8, you should update even if you don’t want to use it. As I said, this is because MS has changed the way IE behaves as a default browser from the latest IE8 version on.
If this is irrelevant because you already have IE8, or the update did not work for you, you could try this:
Right-click any “.htm” file in xplorer² and select “Open With”. Choose Firefox as the application, and check the option box to make it the default application for the “.htm” file type.
You might want to do the same for the “.html” file type.
HTH.

Post by **nikos** » 2009 Dec 29, 08:00

this is interesting!
can someone having IE8 (i am with IE6 :o ) and another browser as default e.g. firefox, try clicking on these demo video links in the "how do I pane?" and confirm what robert is saying?

perhaps "target = _blank" will use the default browser

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2009 Dec 29, 08:26

Robert2 wrote:There is nothing “hard-coded” about these links opening in IE unless you have a version of IE older than IE8.

Sorry Robert2, but many programs do indeed use IE coding (x2 for view rendering, others for indirect Internet access, etc). Just note Nikos' new little image uploader thingy... not only does it use the IE routines, but it takes those of the OS type itself (notably x64 code), which will render through IE x64 (not x86, which is available) whether you like it or not, in particular banjaxing anything related to Flash as Adobe do not support Flash plugins under x64 as yet. Basically making any such (indeed) 'hard coded' rendering quite useless for anyone with such a machine (and the numbers are growing).

I agree with you that logically any such .htm(l) link should go with it's explicitly associated application, but under Vista/Win7 it doesn't seem to work that way, and it has nothing to do with what version of IE one has. Indeed, given the recent MS loss to the European Commission ruling one can expect to see Windows shipped without IE completely.

European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes wrote:Until now computer manufacturers and users could not disable Internet Explorer and replace it with another browser of their choice. More than 100 million European computer users could benefit from the EC's agreement with Microsoft, she said.

nikos wrote:this is interesting!

No such luck. I think it's just a non-Euro XP thing, unless someone knows a more permanent means of rerouting embedded .htm bypassing system program associations.

Edit: I should add that with Firefox as default, any given .htm(l) file will open properly as expected. This only happens when coded links are used.

Robert2 · Post by **Robert2** » 2009 Dec 29, 09:07

Hi,
By “hard-coded” I meant hard-coded to open within IE. I just conducted a little experiment. I used The World Browser options to disable it as my default browser. I opened Firefox and used its options to make it my default browser. The xplorer² “How Do I?” links are now opening in Firefox. So it does not have to be IE, either in the original brew, or as The World Browser engine. HTML links open in any browser considered as default by my system.

Now Kilmatead might be right. It could possibly depend on which system IE8 is installed, “European” or non-European. But on my European XP SP3 system it made a whole world of difference when I installed IE8 and made sure that it did not install as the default browser. I insist that all HTML links open in the Web browser which is default on my system. I did nothing special to achieve this except installing IE8 as non-default, and either The World Browser or Firefox as default themselves.
HTH.

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2009 Dec 29, 10:16

Ok, I said it before and I'll say it again:

Kilmatead wrote:I've no great explanation for this discrepancy.

Given the nature of this thread, I'm not the only one effected/afflicted by this. Is the commonality Vista/Win7 or possibly x64? Unless others post specs, we can't know.

I tried setting your "World" thing to default but it made no difference to the How Do I links - other links, however, such as Register, etc, work as expected in the default browser, so it has nothing to do with Firefox explicitly.

And yes, I'm using IE8 (I don't believe any other version was ever installed, as Win7 retail is all of 3 or 4 months old).

(And I take back my comments related to the Image Uploader Thingy above as to x64 coding... the errors I got are of an unrelated source. It does still, however render under IE. The "How Do I" links call the x64 version of IE (which doesn't support Adobe), which is where I got the confusion from. Apologies for that.)

FrizzleFry · Post by **FrizzleFry** » 2009 Dec 29, 15:26

How Do I links open in IE8 for me even though Firefox is my default browser... I am running Windows 7 Home Premium x64 (US).

I have not done any tweaking at all to IE8 but it is fully patched according to Windows Update.

I do not really care what browser these links open in... they are part of the help system.

longfellow · Post by **longfellow** » 2009 Dec 29, 16:21

I can confirm this behavior on Win7 32-bit. Firefox is default browser, but IE8 is waiting in the wings, and steps up to open all the "How Do I?" links.

I'd prefer links to open in my default browser. What's the point of setting defaults if the system ignores them at its convenience?

Robert2 · Post by **Robert2** » 2009 Dec 30, 12:21

Hi everybody,
I might have “Googled across” a fix for the default browser quandary.
Here is from http://kb.mozillazine.org/Default_browser:

Setting default browser manually
You can manually set the default browser by selecting it as the default program for individual file types and protocols, as follows:
Windows XP and earlier: Open the Control Panel from the Windows Start menu.
In Windows 2000 and earlier, or if Windows XP is using the Control Panel "Classic View": Click on "Folder Options -> File Types".
In Windows XP, if using the Control Panel "Category View": Click on "Performance and Maintenance". Then, click on "File Types" in the left column under the heading "See Also".
Windows 7 and Vista: Click the Start button, open "Default Programs" and then click "Associate a file type or protocol with a program". For detailed instructions, see the Microsoft article here for Vista or here for Windows 7. Note: On Windows Vista (or above), you may be unable to associate the HTTP HTTPS or FTP protocols with SeaMonkey because it does not appear as an available option. See this forum topic for additional information.
Assign the following protocols and file types to the browser you wish to set as default:
URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP protocol)
URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol with Privacy (HTTPS protocol)
URL:File Transfer Protocol {FTP protocol)
HTML File
HTM File (optional)
In Windows XP and earlier, you can find the URL protocols listed above in File Types, under extension "N/A" or "(NONE)".

Also here is from http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6620_102-0. ... dID=252610:

Yeah, ie7 opening links by default was annoying. Firefox is also set as my default browser, but I noticed ie7 remained the default for three file types, including .url. I poked default programs a bit and discovered how to make the switch:
Start, Default Programs, Associate a file type or protcol with a program, scroll to .url, select "change program", and browse to the mozilla firefox folder, select firefox, okay.
…
Go to Start => Run
and then Type
firefox.exe -silent -setDefaultBrowser

Now every link will open only in Firefox.

So running the above command-line, or associating all 3 (above) URL Protocols with Firefox might very well do the trick for you.
HTH.

Kilmatead · Post by **Kilmatead** » 2009 Dec 30, 13:45

...thanks for the effort Robert, but again, no-go for Win7. I thought we almost had something with the .url type (as that one was mis-set), but even after a system restart it still produces nought.

Just for fun I even uninstalled IE completely from the system (this can be done in Vista and Win7) but all that happened was the "How Do I" links failed to invoke anything at all - certainly not a default. Pity. (I do not recommend doing anything this drastic unless you use Image-style backups first.)

The only defaults left to IE are some silly Visio document things, which are never used anyway.

The search goes on...

minutte · Post by **minutte** » 2010 Jan 11, 02:43

To clarify a little bit:
that behavior of xplorer2 has nothing to do with the system default apps by file types nor with the win/ie versions. I use xplorer2 on a Win2000+IE6 with Firefox as default browser and smplayer default media player. Given a correct configuration of default apps, text and video load in the expected app when fired from the file manager panes, but the previewer is indeed "hardcoded" to IE and WMP, (which is bad).

Tools>Options>Window offers only to change the buffer size for previewing, but NOT the preferred associated application. It's weird because the main tab Tools>Options>General offers the options for the default text editor and the image viewer ...
Programmatically speaking it's not consistent: in the same tabbed box, a menu lets pick any editor and viewer without defaulting to windows notepad/imaging and on the next tab, such possibility for picking a browser and a media player is lacking. ?!?

So, as for me, I disable the Preview pane.

(BTW, it's another topic, but the included editor, like most editors, sucks at detecting the right encoding when I open russian text. Only editor I know working right without tweakings is UniRed.)

Tuxman · Post by **Tuxman** » 2010 Apr 08, 02:17

The IE Patcher does not remove that IE control either.

Whiznot · Post by **Whiznot** » 2010 Apr 11, 02:00

Hard coded Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player associations are a deal breaker for me. Goodbye Xploder!