What keeps overwriting my URL:MailTo Protocol entry in FileTypes???

[Michael Moser]

Regularly, when I click a "mailto:..."-link on some webpage I get the
error message
"Could not perform this operation because the default mail client is not
properly installed".

Needless to say, that "Microsoft Outlook" is of course selected under
Tools => Internet Options => Programs => E-mail.

Puzzled I investigated further and found that in Explorer under Tools =>
Folder Options... => File Types the entry for "(None] URL:MailTo
Protocol" contains the value
"C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office10\OUTLOOK.EXE" -c IPM.Note /m "%1" (i.e. in
8.3 notation).

If I change this entry to use long filenames, i.e.:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Outlook.exe" -c IPMNote /m
"%1"

and then click on such a MailTo-URL then things work as expected, i.e.
Outlook starts up and opens a new email with the recipient already
entered.

But after the next reboot that darn value is back to
"C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office10\OUTLOOK.EXE" -c IPMNote /m "%1"

again and and things don't work any more.

So:
1.) Who/what is changing this value back???
2.) why does the short (8.3) form of the path not work here?

Any ideas or hints anybody?

Michael

 

[Brian Tillman]

Puzzled I investigated further and found that in Explorer under Tools
=> Folder Options... => File Types the entry for "(None] URL:MailTo
Protocol" contains the value
"C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office10\OUTLOOK.EXE" -c IPM.Note /m "%1" (i.e.
in 8.3 notation).

If I change this entry to use long filenames, i.e.:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Outlook.exe" -c IPMNote /m
"%1"

and then click on such a MailTo-URL then things work as expected, i.e.
Outlook starts up and opens a new email with the recipient already
entered.

But after the next reboot that darn value is back to
"C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office10\OUTLOOK.EXE" -c IPMNote /m "%1"

again and and things don't work any more.

So:
1.) Who/what is changing this value back???

I don't know. I've wondered myself.

2.) why does the short (8.3) form of the path not work here?

Perhaps "MICROS~2" is not the short form of the "Microsoft Office" folder.
Open a command prompt window, change to "Program Files", then use "dir /x
/p" ro locate the short name of "Microsoft Office" and if it's not
"MICROS~2", change the Open field in the "URL:Mailto Protocol" file type to
use the proper short name.

 

[Michael Moser]

You were right: there were several 8.3 versions with leading MICROS~...:

26.01.2007 12:57 <DIR> MICROS~4 Microsoft ActiveSync
23.01.2007 23:52 <DIR> MICROS~2 Microsoft Bootvis
13.01.2007 13:34 <DIR> MICROS~1 microsoft frontpage
18.01.2007 01:47 <DIR> MI08C4~1 Microsoft Money 2005
14.01.2007 21:07 <DIR> MICROS~3 Microsoft Office
20.01.2007 20:25 <DIR> MICROS~1.NET Microsoft.NET

and "Microsoft Office" actually corresponds to "MICROS~3" not
"MICROS~2"!

What might have caused this havoc? I certainly never touched any of
these 8.3 names And why do long filenames get automagically changed
here?

Anyway - I changed that now to "MICROS~3" and let's see whether that
finally resolves the issue...

Thanks for the hint!
Michael