FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post Reply
thesauce98
Posts:5
Joined:Thu Sep 29, 2011 9:09 am
FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by thesauce98 » Thu Sep 29, 2011 9:22 am

Hello all, I'm having an issue deploying FMFirefoxCE-6.0.2 in my corporate environment. We are using Windows 7 x64 with IE 8 (which we want to keep as default browser). I am installing the MSI with the below command line. It installs just the main feature, and NOT the set as default browser feature. It also runs in the context of the SYSTEM users through our application deployment system.

msiexec /i "FMFirefoxCE-6.0.2-en-US.msi" ADDLOCAL=F_FirefoxMain /qb

The install is fine, and the ADMX policies are working fine (good job on this by the way), however after installing the MSI, Internet Explorer no longer "thinks" it's the default browser, although it is. I believe it's because some registry keys are either changed or removed by the FMFirefoxCE install. Upon launching IE we receive the message that "IE is not set as the default browser, would you like to make it your default browser?". However, if you click hyperlinks from email or your desktop, they open in IE and not Firefox. When i check the installation status of the Firefox MSI, I can confirm that the set as default browser feature is not installed.

Anyone have any ideas on why this is happening? This only seemed to start occuring with the version 6 MSI's. I was previously installing version 4 a few months ago and never had this issue. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks.

thesauce98
Posts:5
Joined:Thu Sep 29, 2011 9:09 am

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by thesauce98 » Mon Oct 03, 2011 3:39 pm

Just tried version 7.0.1 of FMFirefoxCE and I'm still having the same issue. Anyone have any ideas?

User avatar
DraconPern
Site Admin
Posts:1218
Joined:Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:47 pm
Location:Texas
Contact:

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by DraconPern » Mon Oct 03, 2011 7:22 pm

Hum.. can you post the following registry key?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.htm
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\http\shell\open\command
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\ftp\shell\open\command

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.htm
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\http\shell\open\command
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ftp\shell\open\command
FrontMotion Lead Developer

thesauce98
Posts:5
Joined:Thu Sep 29, 2011 9:09 am

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by thesauce98 » Wed Oct 05, 2011 9:37 am

Posting the registry keys below. These look normal to me. Note that the keys only existed in HKLM, and not in HKCU:

Code: Select all

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm]
"PerceivedType"="text"
@="IE.AssocFile.HTM"
"Content Type"="text/html"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm\OpenWithList]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm\OpenWithList\firefox.exe]
@=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm\OpenWithList\notepad.exe]
@=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm\PersistentHandler]
@="{eec97550-47a9-11cf-b952-00aa0051fe20}"


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Internet Explorer\\IEXPLORE.EXE\" -nohome"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\ftp\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Internet Explorer\\IEXPLORE.EXE\" %1"

jpa
Posts:122
Joined:Fri May 01, 2009 5:06 pm

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by jpa » Wed Oct 05, 2011 1:54 pm

The easiest way to figure out what's causing the "IE not default browser" is to get a tool that allows you to take and diff registry snapshots. The tool must handle binary changes so you can't export to a text file and diff that. I use InstallWatchPro which is an ancient and no longer developed tool which can hopefully still be found on the web. Take a snapshot of the registry when IE thinks it's not the default browser. Then allow IE to set itself back to the default browser. Take another snapshot and diff to see what IE has changed in the registry.

Previous versions of Frontmotion Firefox were getting the registry keys a bit mixed up on uninstall. I can't repeat this with the new versions so I'm not sure what's wrong with yours.

MHX
Posts:32
Joined:Thu Oct 06, 2011 1:55 am

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by MHX » Thu Oct 06, 2011 3:07 am

We had the same problem, only with IE9. I recorded the registry changes that occur when you set IE as standard browser (although it already seems to be).
IE prompts with this standard browser message whenever only one of the following regkeys is set to a different value (or does not exist):
Key Value Name Before Value After Value
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Clients\StartmenuInternet - IEXPLORE.EXE
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.htm\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.html\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.mht\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.mhtml\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.partial\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.svg\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.url\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.website\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.xht\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.xhtml\UserChoice Progid - IE.AssocFile.HTM
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\MIMEAssociations\message/rfc822\UserChoice Progid - IE.message/rfc822
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\MIMEAssociations\text/html\UserChoice Progid - IE.text/html
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\ftp\UserChoice Progid - IE.FTP
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\http\UserChoice Progid - IE.HTTP
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\https\UserChoice Progid - IE.HTTPS

I attached the used reg file for easier use.

I created a MSI setup that gets deployed to all machines, using Active Setup so that the settings are set to the user's profile (in their HKEY_CURRENT_USER part). We also had the problem if no Firefox gets installed, but only IE9 over IE8, if I remember correctly. But now we don't have the problem anymore since we deploy this additional MSI.
Attachments
IE-Standardbrowser.zip
Regfile to set IE as standard browser for current user
(658Bytes)Downloaded 24745 times

User avatar
DraconPern
Site Admin
Posts:1218
Joined:Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:47 pm
Location:Texas
Contact:

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by DraconPern » Thu Oct 06, 2011 3:36 am

MHX, Thanks for the reg file.

MHX, was your issue on Win7 also? Any on XP?
FrontMotion Lead Developer

thesauce98
Posts:5
Joined:Thu Sep 29, 2011 9:09 am

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by thesauce98 » Thu Oct 06, 2011 12:25 pm

MHX, thank you so much for the registry file. That appears to resolve the problem.

DraconPern, I looked a little deeper into this because I wanted to find out what changed between version 4.0 and 7.0.1 of FMFirefoxCM, because this issue does not occur when using version 4.0. I found that the following Custom Action had been added to the FMFirefoxCM MSI packages after version 4.0: FixIExplore.

Version 4.0 of the MSI did not include this custom action. I used SuperOrca to remove this Custom Action from the 7.0.1 MSI (FixIExplore) from running by removing the entry for it in InstallExecuteSequence. I then saved the modified MSI and installed it on a test computer. As expected, I did not have the issue with IE not seeing itself as the default browser. IE launched as normal without any prompts.

DraconPern, you might want to look into what exactly the custom action "FixIExplore" is doing. It seems to be main cause of this issue. If I can assist in anyway, please let me know. Thanks.

MHX
Posts:32
Joined:Thu Oct 06, 2011 1:55 am

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by MHX » Fri Oct 07, 2011 5:52 am

@DraconPern: We do not have Win XP anymore, only Win 7 x86 clients.

thesauce98
Posts:5
Joined:Thu Sep 29, 2011 9:09 am

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by thesauce98 » Thu Oct 13, 2011 12:50 pm

@DraconPern: Did you get a chance to look into the FixIExplore custom action, and see why it's causing this strange issue?

For now, I will be deploying a modified version of the MSI with this custom action stripped out, but I would hate to have to do this for every new version that comes out (which seems to be very often thanks to Mozilla).

MadFurai
Posts:18
Joined:Tue Oct 18, 2011 10:05 am

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by MadFurai » Tue Oct 18, 2011 10:07 am

Thanks for the info on removing the CustomAction row to fix this strange issue. I'd also like to know exactly what the FixIexplore custom action is supposed to be doing/fixing.

User avatar
DraconPern
Site Admin
Posts:1218
Joined:Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:47 pm
Location:Texas
Contact:

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by DraconPern » Tue Oct 18, 2011 8:31 pm

It sets the following keys to IE defaults as of version 8 and 9.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.htm , html, shtml, xht, and xhtml
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\http\shell\open\command
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\ftp\shell\open\command
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Clients\StartMenuInternet

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.htm , html, shtml, xht, and xhtml
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\http\shell\open\command
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ftp\shell\open\command
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Clients\StartMenuInternet
FrontMotion Lead Developer

User avatar
DraconPern
Site Admin
Posts:1218
Joined:Thu Oct 30, 2003 11:47 pm
Location:Texas
Contact:

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by DraconPern » Tue Oct 18, 2011 11:32 pm

Hum.. I wonder if there's a difference between x86 and x64 keys. I have done all my test on x64 on Win7 and win2008, doing repeated install/remove with no problems. I tried it on a client and one time it asked about the default on win7 x86. I applied the registry file and it fixed the issue. Unfortunatly, I wasn't able to reproduce the problem again... I'll have to try this in a VM and see what's going on.
FrontMotion Lead Developer

MadFurai
Posts:18
Joined:Tue Oct 18, 2011 10:05 am

Re: FMFirefox Community Edition - IE losing default browser

Post by MadFurai » Wed Oct 19, 2011 11:53 am

FYI, the systems I saw this issue on were Windows 7 32-bit.

Post Reply