220865 - Mozilla should retain default-browser setting on a per-user basis

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Gili Tzabari]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20030916
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20030916

When a user chooses to make Mozilla his default browser, it should modify
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes (user-specific preferences, as opposed to
system-wide preferences). The reason is simple:

- If two users use the system and one chooses to use Explorer while the other
uses Mozilla and both browsers modify HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (as they currently do)
it is impossible for each user to use the browser of his/her choice.

- Since the majority of users on a system (unfortunately) tend to use Explorer,
the only way to allow poor user Joe to use Mozilla is to override the default at
the per-user level.

Browsers shouldn't be modifying per-system level settings anyway. It's not their
job. If you want to have some sort of administrator feature that changes the
default browser on a system-wide basis, that's fine, but the default behavior
should be to modify the default browser on a per-user basis.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. See description

Comment 1

[OstGote!]

related Bug 235380

Comment 2

[Bogdan Stroe]

marking as duplicate since the discussion is taking place in bug 235380;

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 235380 ***

Comment 3

[Isaac Hwak Han]

Reopened since this bug is about Seamonkey

Comment 4

[timeless]

*** Bug 249386 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 5

[OstGote!]

Only a note, Bug 235380 comment 6 states that this is XP-only.

Comment 6

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

The issue applies to Windows 2000 as well as to Windows XP.

Despite the fact that bug 235380 has been marked fixed, I am skeptical that the 
desired results have been achieved.  (I have not installed Firefox to find out.)

Altho it is certainly possible to write the "default browser" registry keys in 
the user-specific registry branch, rather than the system-wide registry branch 
(HKCU vs. HKLM), Windows ignores the HKCU settings.  This is apparently a known 
problem at Microsoft; see these MSKB articles:
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315240
   -- indicates the behavior is a bug
  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;297878
   -- describes the intended behavior

In summary, once an Administrator on the Windows box has made the decision for a 
default browser, mail program, chat program, etc, that decision applies to all 
users on the box.  Mozilla can't fix that.

Mozilla Mail/News already does create the HKCU branch, but as far as I can tell 
it is ignored thereafter, by Windows and by Mozilla.

Comment 7

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

I forgot to mention: the "defaultness" of a program is not related to the 
handlers of various protocols (http:, mailto:) or file types (.html) -- those 
settings can, and should, be user-specific.

Comment 8

[Gili Tzabari]

Mike,

  What you say doesn't make sense to me. The bug you mentioned might apply for
email readers but it surely does not apply for browsers. I have hacked together
some REG files in the past that allowed some users on my system to use Internet
Explorer while others used Mozilla and they coexisted just fine. Windows used
HKCU over HKLM as documented so I don't see why Mozilla can't do this. Maybe
this will still fail to work for the mail component, but for the browser
component at least it is doable.

Comment 9

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

My understanding is: the only place where the "default" browser makes a 
difference is in the Windows XP Start menu, which has specialized support for 
the various clients -- browser, mailer, chat program, etc.  Windows 2000 
supports the default client specification, but 

The handlers for file extensions (.html, .jpg, .eml, etc) and for protocols 
(http, mailto) can indeed be specified on a per-user basis.  If those settings 
are what you wanted changed with this bug, "default browser" is the wrong term.  
See bug 219938.

Comment 10

[Gili Tzabari]

Mike,

  That is odd because I changed the current user settings and I see Mozilla
under the Start Menu -> "Internet" icon while other users on my system see
Internet Explorer. I think solving this issue is still technically possible.

  Isn't this what is meant by "default browser"? To me, default browser means
what shows up in the start menu, what opens when I open HTML files, what opens
when I use start -> run. That's it. All this already works for me on a per-user
basis. What else are we talking about?

Comment 11

[Rolf]

I created a attachment with registry codes on bug 247869 with discribes the same
problem for firefox on windows 2000. This registry codes make FireFox to act as
the default browser, on a per user base because I have no administrator-rights.
Even InternetExplorer complains about not being the default browser. 
Just FireFox doesn't recognise it's the default browser (at least 9.x).

Comment 12

[Rolf]

According to 
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/en-us/regentry/69673.asp?frame=true

Windows uses the information of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT to determin which programs to
start. 

As of windows 2000:
"The content of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT comes from two sources:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes. If a
subkey or entry appears in either location, it also appears in
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. If the values of entries in the two Classes subkeys conflict,
only the value in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes appears in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT."

Conclusion: HKLM for system default and HKCU for user default
and check for default in HKCR

Comment 13

[Mike Fedyk]

This is a dup of 247869, unless there is a reason to have one for firefox and
one for the suite.

Comment 14

[Andrew Schultz]

XP Apps

Comment 17

[Peter Weilbacher]

Bug 247869 is confirmed I don't see why this shouldn't be.

Comment 18

[Matěj Cepl]

isn't this duplicate of bug 138997