MS Outlook Hyperlink Annoyance

If you ever have to work with Microsoft Outlook, you would know how annoying some of its features are or lack of.

For a while, my Outlook would not open any hyperlinks sent through emails.



The error message popped up does not provide any specific information regarding the reason or how to rectify the situation. All it does is to add more frustration on the user.



"This operation has been canceled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator."

It turns out there were no restrictions that prevented hyperlinks from opening, rather a registry issue.

After upgraded Internet Explorer 6 to IE7, one little registry setting is either corrupted or missing.

HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Classes\htmlfile\shell\open\command

To fix this, IE must be set as the default web browser first,



Open IE>Tools>Internet Options>Programs tab>Default web browser>Make default button

I then quickly set Mozilla Firefox as my default web browser after that.

By the way, the link I was trying to open in China Success Stories was very interesting read. I would highly recommend it.