SetBrowser utility a lifesaver

I wanted to pass on how I fixed Thunderbird recently when it ceased invoking firefox when I clicked on URL links.

I use the portable versions of Thunderbird and Firefox. I have been very impressed with how quickly the maintainers of those packages keep them updated. I think the 2.0 version of PortableFirefox was available before the regular version was! Unfortunately, after upgrading to Portable Firefox 2.0, Thunderbird ceased to be able to bring up Firefox when I clicked on a URL inside any email message.

I fiddled with this numerous ways but couldn't get it to work. I even tried installing the regular 2.0 firefox, but it still didn't work. I found a web page that described how to manually set the browser to use inside Thunderbird's config file. Still no dice. Argh!

Fortunately, another web page mentioned some freeware apps that did fix things for me. I simply downloaded the SetBrowser app here:

http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/setbrowser/

installed the program, and then ran it. The application was very easy to use and it was straightforward to tell it to set my default browser to the location of the Portable Firefox executable. I clicked the "apply" button and suddenly, like magic, my links in Thunderbird were working again.

Yay!

One odd thing was that while Thunderbird was unable to open links for me, other applications were still working. For example, Directory Opus (my file browser of choice) was able to bring up firefox when I clicked on URL links. For some reason, Thunderbird was crippled and SetBrowser fixed it.

Hope this helps at least one person. if it does, email me to let me know!

-Michael