All of the links on my computer open in notepad instead of IE or Firefox

Hey guys,

I'm having this weird problem. The links in System icons or Taskbar (near the clock) they all open in Notepad.

I mean when I receive a new email in my hotmail or gmail account. The messengers (gtalk and msn) have a little notification that pops that which tell you that you have a new mail.

When I click on this notification instead of having Firefox open up my email account, I just get notepad with HTML code.

I right clicked on one of the HTML files on my desktop and made sure that it opens with Firefox. Still the problem exists.

Anyone have a similar or same problem?

Thanks

 

What Windows version OS?

 

Win 7 home Premium

 

if you open regedit and go to

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.html
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.htm

Do you have 3 keys or only 2? Do you have one called Userchoice? What is the value for ProgID if you do?

 

.htm - ChromeHTML

.html - FireforxHTML

I don't even have Chrome on my Windows anymore. Since htm is attached to chrome and chrome is uninstalled, is that the reason it keeps opening it in notepad? Also I tried replace ChromeHTML with FirefoxHTML, it gave me an error "Cannot edit Progid: Error writing the value's new contents."

 

Right click the file, open with, choose your default program as firefox, and click ok.

 

delete the userchoice key(s) and start over again. It will go back to whatever the default is set to open with.

 

I did this step. I deleted the keys and opened the html and htm files again, this time they opened with notepad as well. When I went to change the program it had "Microsoft Office 2010 Component" as the default program to open those two file types. I changed both of them to firefox and now they open in FF from desktop.

But the issue remains, whenever I click on the notification of an email in the taskbar, the link opens up in notepad. It just displays HTML code of the file that was suppose to open in FF.

I wouldn't care much about this, but I use a device and after syncing, it opens a HTM or HTML file that displays some variables. But the file keeps opening in notepad. And this applies to everything in the taskbar system icons.

For example, this is the file name that the notepad opens when I click on email link in Gtalk. "TokenAuth[1]..com%2Fmail&source=googletalk"

 

Anyone?
Thanks

 

This link should give you a bit of information:

Registering an Application to a URL Protocol

The problem isn't with file associations, it's with the http protocol handler somehow being associated with Notepad instead of a web browser. It should be fixable by editing the registry, I'm not sure of the exact location though.

You may also be able to fix it by going into Firefox and setting it to be your default browser again. Probably the best way of going about it.

 

WOW

I went to the settings and set firefox as the default browser again and it WORKED!

Now, it seems too simple. Like the others I thought the problem was with file extension.

Thank you kind sir.