383926 - IE7 displays an error that the email program is not installed properly.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 452665

(Thunderbird :: Installer, defect)

Description

[Joe George]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506)
Build Identifier: 2.0.0.0 (20070326)

I'm using Vista Home Premium. It is up to date because I have automatic updates turned on. I'm also using IE7 instead of Firefox because ancestry.com does not work right with Firefox. The part that does not work right requires a paid subscription to reproduce the problem. I have reported that problem before. IE7 has a bug that may be triggered by a bug with Thunderbird installation. If I click on an email link on a page displayed by IE7 a message is displayed that the email program is not installed properly. I have checked to make sure that Thunderbird is the default email program everywhere that I can. It is. Somehow there is a flag or something that IE7 expects that Thunderbird installation is not setting properly. The error message would not be so bad, but there is a bug in IE7 that causes a run away in starting new IE7 windows until it hits the limit. Then I have to close all of the extra windows or restart IE7. The work around (if I remember to do it) is to capture the email address and paste it into Thunderbird. Other problems with Thunderbird and Vista Home Premium are minor.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Click on an email address on any page displayed by IE7.
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
I get the above error message. The only option is to click on ok. When that happens IE7 runs away.

Expected Results:  
It should have opened the send window in Thunderbird with the selected email addess.

This bug may be a catch 22. I report it to you and you will respond that it is an IE7 problem. If I report it to Microsoft they will say I should be using Vista Mail. I can't use Vista Mail because I can't import contacts and email message folders from Thunderbird to Vista Mail. I prefer to use Thunderbird if I can in spite of this bug. It works better. IE7 may run away even if Thunderbird installs properly. I have no way of knowing that until the installation is correct.

Comment 1

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Is this for all email links, or just a specific? If just a specific, can you give the url where the link is?

Have you tried re-setting thunderbird as default mail application? Not sure about vista, but at least xp had a preferred applications item somewhere, does it list thunderbird there?

Comment 2

[Joe George]

All email links.

I have reset Thunderbird as the default mail application a few times. I have also found the preferred applications list. It's on it.

Vista is quite a bit different in how it does things like this. I believe that is because IE7 has been divorced from WE in Vista. A lot of stuff in Vista is really different because of that.

The Thunderbird installation may be in conflict with some Vista security thing. There are interruptions from security popups during any program install.

Comment 3

[Steve Simms]

Duplicate of bug 452665.  A little more troubleshooting has happened in that bug, so I'm going to resolve this one as a dup of that one, even though it's later.