2857 - Communicator 4.5 doesn't fully register itself as a Windows email client

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Message Display, defect, P2)

Description

[ericbe]

When you install Communicator 4.5, it registers itself as a mail client in the
Internet control panel's Programs tab so that the user can choose it as their
default mail client.  (Well, actually, it makes itself the default without
asking the user, but that's another story).

Anyhow, this works--mostly.  When the user selects messenger as their mail
client, mailto: URLs in IE/Windows shell correctly launch messenger, and send-
page-by-email seems to work OK too.

But choosing "Read Mail" in IE stops working.  Reason is pretty simple.  When
the user choose "Read Mail", here's what IE does:
- Looks in the registry under HKLM\Software\Clients\Mail and reads the default
value.  This is the current default mail client, and is used as the subkey in
the next step.  In Comm. 4.5's case, it is "Netscape Messenger".
- It then looks in HKLM\Software\Clients\Mail\Netscape
Messenger\Shell\open\command.  The default value of this registry setting is
the command line to launch.

The problem is that Communicator has not put anything at this registry location.

Fix is very simple: put the command line at this location, including full path
to communicator's EXE and any relevant command line arguments, and you're done.

Thanks

Comment 1

[lchiang]

qa contact to gbush.  May need to move this one to bugsplat for marek to process
since it's against 4.5.

Comment 2

[lchiang]

Transferred contents to bugsplat bug 342363.

Comment 3

[leger]

ericbe...what build number did you download.  Need number off the title bar when
you do an About Communicator in the Help menu.  Thanks!

Comment 4

[ericbe]

Build number per title bar when doing About/Communicator is Version 4.5 [en] -
98293

Comment 5

[Grace Bush]

Have done both clean installs and upgrade installs (4.08 -> 4.5) using
both inhouse RTM version and download version but cannot reproduce.  My registry
entry is 'C:\Program Files\Netscape\Communicator\Program\netscape.exe "%1"'-I
had to do some resizing in regedit to see the full path.
Still investigating

Comment 6

[lchiang]

Jan, shouldn't all comments pertaining to this bug report reside in bugsplat bug
342363 since this is talking about 4.5 which is not open source?  Doesn't belong
in bugzilla.

Comment 7

[leger]

We are communicating with the bug writer externally via Bugzilla temporarily.
Easier to talk with him whilst resolving.

Comment 8

[leger]

ericbe, please try this with the new 4.51 build posted at:
http://home.netscape.com/computing/download/index.html?cp=hom03prt1

Comment 9

[ericbe]

Just tried 4.51 per email communication; problem is still there.

Note too that even if you install 4.51 and tell it not to take over
HTML/Search/Home Page/etc., it still sets Messenger as the default mail
client.  This is bad--should only do this if the user agrees to it.  Actually,
what's really bad is that all it does is set HKLM\Software\Clients\Mail to
Netscape Messenger, but doesn't fix up all the stuff that needs fixing (e.g.,
mailto: URLs are still handled by whoever was set up to handle them before
installing communicator).

Comment 10

[leger]

This is being investigated by our Sustaining Engineering team at this time.

Comment 11

[leger]

This is a 4.x bug and is cover in internal Bugsplat database under #342363.
Setting this to Verified/Invalid in this public database.

ericbe, Sustaining Engineering team here willl ensure that all is will with next
4.x release.