Registry File Fix

HKEYLOCALMACHINE, often abbreviated as HKLM, is one of several registry hives that make up the Windows Registry.This particular hive contains the majority of the configuration information for the software you have installed, as well as for the Windows operating system itself.

For anyone that just wants the fix first-thing: save this file to your desktop and run! Please understand what this does before committing this file to the registry, use this at your own risk!

The Problem

After installing GW7 onto my Windows 7 box I noticed that Windows defaulted to Outlook/Thunderbird. Simple I thought, I’d just go to Default Programs under Control Panel and switch the mailto protocol to Groupwise. Not so simple, I had soon realized, is the fact that this cannot be done as Groupwise does not show as a registered application (maybe just me, but knowing Novell I’ll assume this is for others as well).

Thankfully Microsoft has an article on how to register an application, quite handy actually. This should be used as much as possible in a large corporate environment as it is a cleaner way of managing defaults, especially when you do not want to be on the phone with a client walking them through keys and values. Here I will give a much simpler approach to this, while using my Groupwise fix as both an example and as a patch for anyone that is using this as well.

The three main areas of implementing an application are:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE{Path of Choice}
   Anywhere within you must have a certain grouping which describes the capabilities of the program, icons, the paths, etc.
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARERegisteredApplications
   This is essentially a pointer, telling Windows where #1 is.
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREClasses{New or Existing binding}
   Any handlers (basically #1 comes here to say, “user wants this, what should I run?”)

I’m not going to go into specifics, most people should be able to understand what my registry edits do and how they relate to the above!

RegisteredApplications

Software Keys

This looks tricky, but it really isn’t. Most of these were already there from Groupwise. It looks much simpler when viewing in the registry. Key point being the Capability‘s key and values, and the mailto key and values.

CLASS

Groupwise.Url.mailto is referenced by UrlAssociations in the Capabilities Key. This is required!