Troubleshooting: Prevent "Locate Link Browser" Popup Dialog when Clicking on Links in Outlook

If using Firefox as default Internet browser and Outlook as email client, then one might have noticed that when one clicks on a URL link in an Outlook email, a window named “Locate Link Browser” will appear on the screen and then Firefox will load normally. It’s not bad for the system but can be really annoying for the users to close that window every time.

The dialog box will not appear if you already have Firefox running. It only happens when you click on a link and Firefox is closed. Also, while IE, the problem will not be there.

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To remove this irritating dialog bow forever follow these steps to solve the problm on Windows XP:

Step 1: Go into My Computer either from the desktop or from the Start Menu.

Step 2: Go to the Tools menu and click Folder Options.

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Step 3: Then click on the File Types tab and a list of registered file types Extensions and File Types will be there on your screen. Below Extensions column, find the entries with (NONE) and in that subset, find the entry under File Types named URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol.

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Step 4: Click the Advanced option at the end of the window and after that click the Edit option.

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Step 5: And then uncheck the DDE button. It is known as “Use DDE” and it’s checked by default setting.

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Now click on Ok option and then Ok one more time and then close the window. Now it’s effective. Similar can be done with: URL: HyperText with Security. This is for HTTPS links.

Check if there’s nothing in the “Application used to perform action”, then click Browse and search the Firefox.exe application.

In the method above may not support Windows Vista,. In Vista, you have to remove some registry keys to get rid of the dialog box. Shown below is how to do it.

Step 1: Click Start, go to Run and enter in regedit. Or enter in regedit in the Instant Search Box and hit the Enter button.

Step 2: Move to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\HTTP\shell\open\ddeexec registry key.

Step 3: Remove the “ddexec” registry key

Step 4: Do the same for the following keys:

“HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\HTTPS\shell\open\ddeexec”
“HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxURL\shell\open\ddeexec”
“HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxHTML\shell\open\ddeexec”

It will solve the problem in Windows XP and Windows Vista as well!