252615 - Link Browser

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 246078

(Firefox :: File Handling, defect)

Description

[charles e. dial]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040707 Firefox/0.9.2

This may just be a very serious documentation flaw. The above link in an Outlook
2002 email causes firefox to open a standard file dialog for a "link browser".
The link must be activated from the Outlook email, not the Firefox address
window for the bug to happen. There is no documentation anywhere if FireFox on 
  a. whatever the hell a link borwser is
  b. how to change or elimate the setting for it!
In an effort to get rid of this pesky file open dialog window I told the dialog
window to use a "do nothing" C# .NET program to perform the mystery function the
dialog asked for. Firefox then opened this program, which immediately generates
an exception because it cannot find the Microsoft Common Language Runtime -
which is installed and working.
This is a major annoyance that might force me back to using IE, even though it
is probably nothing more than sloppy documentation.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Email the above link to an Outlook 2002 email client
2.  Click the link in an Outlook 2002 email window.
3. FireFox asks opens a file dialog for a "link browser", whatever the hell that is.

Actual Results:  
I cancelled the dialog, but fianlly gave it a program to run as described above.

Expected Results:  
It should have some documentation on what a "link browser" is, and HOW TO CHANGE
THE SETTING for it.

Comment 1

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 246078 ***

Comment 2

[charles e. dial]

NOTE: your responses to this bug are totally correct. unfortuantely, they have
NO RELEVANCE to the bug reported. The clicked link opens fine in a new window as
you report, but ONLY AFTER opening the totally annoying and totally undocumented
file open dialog hassles the user.

Your reference to the registry entries also appear to be incorrect. A registry
search turns up the following suspicious key. If it is in fact the problem you
need to document it. The suspicious key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Office/10.0/Outlook/Preferences/InternetBrowserPath


THE PROGRAM NAMED IN THIS KEY RUNS CONCURRENTLY WITH FIREFOX. REPEAT: FIREFOX
OPENS CORRECTLY!!!

NOTE: this stupid and annoying file open dialog window may be a side effect of
recent security patches by Microsoft. All known critical updates from MS have
been installed.

Comment 3

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

The "link browser" dialog is from Outlook, not Firefox.  This behavior is
exhibited due to bug 246078 .  If you follow the steps in that bug, you can
eliminate the problem.  I had this problem with Outlook 2003, and changing the
registry entries fixed it.  Hopefully this bug will be fixed in a future version
of Firefox.

In other words, this is a duplicate bug, and no more needs to be said.

Comment 4

[charles e. dial]

This is NOT a duplicate of bug 246078 because I have verified that the registry key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Office/10.0/Outlook/Preferences/InternetBrowserPath

is much of where the problme lies. Making its value point to FireFox fixes the
primary complaint - the wierd file open dialog box. Now the pesky dialog box no
longer appears, but TWO new and separate copies of FireFox open when an email
link is clicked. NOTE: the value in the above key is set by the pesky dialog box

The assertion that the dialog box comes from Outlook 2002 may be true in the
most narrow nit picking sense. It never happened with IE, and only happened with
FireFox when FF was made the default browser. Therefore, if Outlook generated
the dialog, it was generated only because something in the registry got trashed
when FF made itself the default browser. The key cited above is one of those
somethings.

Comment 5

[(not currently active) Ted Mielczarek]

This is a duplicate.  Do not reopen.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 246078 ***