Bizarre IE7 behaviour

[ssilverm]

'm running IE7 on Vista 64-bit. It is definitely set as my default
browser.

As of a couple of days ago, URLs will not longer work outside of the
browser.

If I type a URL directly into the Start Menu's "Run" box I am told
that:

"This file does not have a program associated with it for
performing this action. Create an association in the Set Association
control panel".

If I click on a link within Windows Live Mail, the
same thing happens.

The problem manifests itself slightly differently within Outlook 2007.
I get prompted to choose the program I want to use to open the link.
Naturally I choose IE and ensure that the "always use this program"
box is checked. However, the next time I click a link within an email,
the same thing happens.

If I set Firefox as my default program, everything works perfectly,
but I only want to use that browser as an exception, not as my normal
browser. I tried uninstalling it to see if it would help, but it
didn't. I also tried installing IE 8 beta 2 to see if that would clear the problem. It didn't.

Any and all suggestions gratefully received.

Steve S.

 

[bruceb]

Go into Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options, File Types
Scroll down until you find URL .. Select Change Association so
that it opens with: "Shell Doc Object and Control Library"

That should do it.

 

[ssilverm]

I don't seem to have a "File Types" tab in Explorer's "Folder Options". Just "General", "View", and "Search". Maybe that's because I'm running Vista. I can access "File Types" via the "Default Programs" dialogue, but it doesn't give me the option of changing the ".url" association in the way you suggest.

Steve S.

 

[bruceb]

Please see this link .. it explains how it is done in Vista

http://articles.techrepublic.c...-10878_11-6172036.html

Basically this is how you do it:

If you find that a file is opening with a program other than the one you want it can be hard to find the file associations dialog.

1) Open Windows Explorer
2) Right click on a file with the extension in question
3) Go to 'Open with...'
4) As a selection you will see 'Set default program', select this.
5) You are now in an association dialog where you can pick a program, browse to a program of your choice, along with other options.

 

[ssilverm]

1) Open Windows Explorer
2) Right click on a file with the extension in question
3) Go to 'Open with...'
4) As a selection you will see 'Set default program', select this.
5) You are now in an association dialog where you can pick a program, browse to a program of your choice, along with other options.

I suspect that something fundamental has been damaged. I went through the steps outlined above several times before posting here. Every time I selected IE as the default it failed to "take". Even more bizarrely, IE no longer appears as an available program in the "Set your default programs" dialogue accessed via the Control Panel.

Steve S.