Adobe AIR & Windows Vista

February 25, 2008

I’ve been enjoying some of the Adobe AIR apps during it’s development over the past year. Among several Twitter clients that have popped up in the last few months running on AIR, I’ve really enjoyed Twhirl.

Now, if you’re a Twitter user, you know that its a great way to share links and more. Works great - except when you’ve set a browser other than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the default web browser. I happen to be partial to Firefox, and use it constantly, so when an Adobe AIR based app launches IE when I click a shared link - it’s upsetting.

Luckily in the final version there is an Adobe KB article with instructions on how to fix that problem. Personally I think their reason that it doesn’t work in the first place is lame:

Windows Vista does not make the required additional registry entries correctly when a browser other than Internet Explorer is set as the default browser. When an attempt to load the URL is made, Adobe AIR uses Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) to connect to an open instance of the browser registered for URL requests. If that fails, Adobe AIR falls back on Shell Execution.

Other non-Microsoft (and Microsoft!) applications have consistently and successfully launched the correct browser for me. Why not AIR?

At any rate, here is how to fix the problem.

Launch “Default Programs” off the Vista Start Menu
Click on “Set Program Access And Computer Defaults” in the Default Programs dialog
Select “Custom” from the list and choose your preferred browser from the list of recognized installed browsers.
Click OK and your done.

Next time you launch your AIR app, you will be able to follow links and have them load in your preferred browser.

Technorati Tags: Adobe AIR, Firefox, Twitter, Twhirl, Windows Vista

Conversation Tags: firefox, twhirl, Twitter, vista

Categories: Software, Windows

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Comments

Comment by Michael Flanagan on March 6, 2008 @ 7:08 pm

Just what I needed, thanks!

Comment by mike on April 9, 2008 @ 11:25 am

perfect, thanks!

Comment by Ryan on April 13, 2008 @ 10:03 am

This doesn’t work for me. IE is the only browser in that list.

Comment by Lawrence on April 13, 2008 @ 12:11 pm

To be totally honest, that KB article is just an excuse. It’s perfectly easy to, if it’s a vista user, check the correct registry adjustments, or even use the AIR runtime to do it for the user.

Comment by Rick Mahn on April 14, 2008 @ 2:20 pm

Ryan - I have to ask: you do have another browser besides IE installed…?

Lawrence, of course it is! I’m just surprised at Adobe. Frustrating experience on that one.

Comment by Caio Iglesias on April 17, 2008 @ 5:54 am

Man… That “Set Program Access And Computer Defaults” won’t save my options! It just switches everything back to “Use my current…” the next time I go into it. I am logged in as an admin. Is anyone else experiencing something like this?

Comment by Rick Mahn on April 17, 2008 @ 7:25 am

Caio,
I have seen that! Just the other day when I updated AlertThingy to a new version. What ended up working was to close my browsers and all AIR apps, then go change the default browser settings detailed above. Then when I launched Twhirl it would again open my links in the correct browser.

Hope this helps,
Rick

Comment by Caio Iglesias on April 17, 2008 @ 5:53 pm

Hey Rick, thanks for the reply. I tried what you suggested but it’s still not working. Does it switch back to “Use my current…” when you change it and then open “Set Program Access And Computer Defaults” again or the option you chose is still selected? Thanks!

Comment by Rick Mahn on April 17, 2008 @ 6:03 pm

Caio, When I had the apps open it reverted to “use current” but when I closed them all and changed the settings it stuck. Maybe I just got lucky with it. Might be something to dig deeper on Adobe’s knowledge base, or to check with Twhirl as well. Wish I had another idea to try, but it’s about all the settings that there are for this.

Rick

Comment by Caio Iglesias on April 17, 2008 @ 7:10 pm

Got it!
Start + R
regedit
and deleted:
- HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/.htm
- HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/.html
- HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/.lnk
After restart they were recreated properly and calling for firefox.

I found a tip for this @ google desktops’ google group.

Thanks Rick!

Comment by Rick Mahn on April 17, 2008 @ 7:59 pm

Caio, That’s good news! Sorry I had no other ideas, glad you found it in the end. Also, thank you for sharing what worked for other folks to find.

Regards,
Rick

Comment by Caio Iglesias on April 18, 2008 @ 9:38 pm

I’m back again for one last warning
Far too many registry deletions!!!
Don’t delete the last one: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/.lnk, it causes windows shortcuts to do nothing. The fix is here: http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/105/1/File-association-fixes-for-Windows-Vista.html
Just download the fix for the .lnk filetype association and “run” it.
Done. Thanks once again!

Comment by Luke Armour on April 30, 2008 @ 1:23 pm

This was perfect for me and I’ve been able to share it with other twitterati who have been seeking looking to solve the same problem. Great tip.

Comment by Rick Mahn on April 30, 2008 @ 10:20 pm

Luke, glad it helped out! Something that should have been built into the AIR install itself, but at least we have the ability to make it work the way we want.