178770 - MAPI: Cannot switch Mail Client from Netscape to other mail clients after setting Netscape as default Mail Client for MAPI

Status: NEW

(MailNews Core :: Simple MAPI, defect)

Description

[Karen Huang]

MAPI: Cannot switch Mail Client from Netscape to other mail clients after
setting Netscape as default Mail Client for MAPI

Found this MAPI problem when using AOL, Outlook Express & Netscape as different
default mail clients.

If switch default Mail Clients (without involving Netscape):
"From AOL to Outlook Express"  -> Successful
"From Outlook Express to AOL" -> Successful

But, once involved Netscape and tried to switch default Mail Client from
Netscape to other Mail clients (e.g. AOL or Outlook Express). It will Failed to
use other mail clients even the default is set to other mail clients.

Steps: 
1) Before setup Netscape as default Mail client, setup AOL or Outlook Express as
default Mail client.
2) Select Context menu "Send to-> Mail Recipient" will use AOL or Outlook
Express as default Mail without problems
3) After choose Netscape as default Mail client, it did use Netscape Mail client
for the default Mail client via context menu "Send to-> Mail Recipient".
4) But, after switched from Netscape to other Mail client (as default Mail client)

Actual Results: Select context menu "Send to-> Mail Recipient" will still bring
up Netscape instead of other mail clients as default Mail client.

Expected Results: 
After switch mail default from Netscape to other Mail client, select Context
"Send to-> Mail Recipient" should bring up other mail clients instead of
Netscape Mail.

Comment 1

[Karen Huang]

After do more investigation for this bug.
This is NOT a regression bug since problem can be reproduced on Netscape 6.2 RTM
This is NOT specific for Win2k & WinXP platform since problem can be reproduced
on Win98 too....so this problem is occurring on all the windows platforms.

Rajiv, it will be good if you can put the reasons here to explain why this
problem is only occurring for Netscape, but not for other mail clients.

Ccing Gayatri.
After talked to Gayatri, it's too late for Blackbird....
So, I am nominating this bug for next release -> Buffy.

Comment 2

[Sean Su]

In order to make Mozilla/Netscape the default app we update the Win Registry
settings in both HKLM/Software/Clients/Mail and HKCU/Software/Clients/Mail since
Windows MAPI looks into first HKCU and then HKLM to decide which app to send the
MAPI/Mail request to. 

However, both Outlook and AOL update only the HKLM/Software/Clients/Mail entry!

Thus if Outlook or AOL is set as the default app "after" Mozilla or Netscape has
been set as the default app, MAPI still brings up Mozilla/Netscape since it
finds it in HKCU registry entry.

Comment 3

[Rajiv Dayal]

Oops ... the above comment is from me. Sean was logged into Bugzilla from my
machine and hence u see the above comment from him instead of me.

Comment 4

[Rajiv Dayal]

An way to workaround this is to unselect the pref to make Mozilla the default
mail app and then go and make the other App (AOL/Outlook) as the default app. 

Or in case if you have already made the other app as default mail app, do following:
- make Mozilla default mail app from prefs and close prefs window.
- open prefs window and unselect the option to make us the default.
- now go and make the other app as default mail app.

This is so because when u unselect the pref, it removes the entry from HKCU and
HKLM and thus when u make any other app default mail app, it will work as
desired as per this bug.

Comment 5

[Rajiv Dayal]

Attachment: patch to fix this

Comment 6

[esther]

This may be a dup of 103230 which was marked a dup of 109362-unresolved.  There
are comments by Rajiv on scenarios to fix it. When verifying this bug please
check the these bugs too. 

Comment 7

[Samir Gehani]

Mail triage team: nsbeta1-

Comment 8

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Suggested dupes in comment 6 are not dupes; this problem is specific to a 
registry key update, not a file issue.

The patch attached to this bug may not have been checked in itself, but the 
current trunk version of the file shows the same changes.  

It is not clear to me why this would have been thought to solve the problem.  
As far as I can tell, if another client makes itself the default, no Mozilla 
code is called in response -- therefore, except for clients that update HKCU 
themselves (are there any besides Moz and TB?), the HKCU\Software\Clients\Mail 
def.value will continue to point to Mozilla (or TB).  I don't see how that's 
avoidable.  I suppose Moz could, at every startup, check the the registry, and 
if it's lost its defaultness, reset the registry keys -- but the patch on this 
bug does not do that.

Note that most applications I've tried do not use the HKCU-specified MAPI client 
-- for instance, Office 95 and Office 2000.  However, IE6 and Windows 2000, at 
least, do appear to abide by the HKCU key for their MAPI functions.

Also note that mailto URLs are handled by most applications by directly looking 
up the mailto handler, rather than using MAPI.  Mozilla's failure to set up that 
registry key is bug 202497.

Comment 9

[Bruno 'Aqualon' Escherl]

WFM using SeaMonkey 1.1.9 and Windows XP SP2, I switched from SeaMonkey succesfully to Outlook Express and back using the "Set Program Access and Defaults" feature as described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328326/EN-US/

Comment 10

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

Sid when you'll have a minute can you check the attached patch ? and see if it's still worth it - or worth working on that. To my knowledge it's now possible to switch back from TB/SM to outlook.