Tip of the day: Fix problems with your default browser

In yesterday’s tip, I pointed out how to use the Set Program Access and Defaults utility to change your default browser. When you use this tool, the browser you specify appears at the top of the Start menu and should open whenever you click a link.

In theory, that’s true. In practice, you may find that some types of shortcuts continue to open with your old browser. (The problem isn’t limited to Internet Explorer, either. If you experiment with different browsers you’ll find that most don’t do a good job of cleaning up after themselves.)

If you find that your old browser continues to open even after you’ve specified a new default browser, check your file associations to see if you can identify the problem. Open Control Panel, double-click Folder Options, and click the File Types tab. You’ll need to inspect the entries for six file types:

These three file types have no file name extension:

• Internet Shortcut
• URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol
• URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol with Privacy

These three file types have specific file name extensions:

• HTM – HTML Document
• HTML – HTML Document
• URL – URL File

On one of my PCs, I’ve specified Maxthon as the default browser, but as the screen here illustrates, the URL file type is still associated with Internet Explorer.

In this case, you can fix the problem fairly easily by clicking the Restore button. In other cases, you may need to click the Change button and choose your browser from a list of available options. If that option is not available, click the Advanced button (which appears where the Restore button is shown here) and edit the associations manually. This isn’t a job for the faint-hearted. You may need to enter a collection of obscure DDE commands to make the file type work properly. Your best bet is to look on another computer (one that hasn’t been customized) to see the correct settings and then copy those.