Solved Don't Want Any "mailto:" Program To Open

[taglock]

Stop Windows Live Mail Opening When I Click "mailto:" Link

I have Windows Live Mail on my computer but I don't want to use it. Rather than uninstalling it, I'd like a way to remove it as the default mail handler - without replacing it with any other handler.

Basically, I don't want any mail program to open when I (accidentally) click a mailto: link. How do I achieve that?

I tried looking into removing the default mail handler but it won't seem to let me just have none.

EDIT: Solved - There's no easy way to purely remove a file/protocol association. You can only change an association (at least through the normal Windows methods). mailto: is a protocol and changing the mailto: association to a program that does nothing with it (Chrome) worked for me.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi I'm not sure how you would expect to send such an email,
Possibly give more details because I'm not seeing why you would want to use the Contact us or mail to link to the first place ?
http://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/269402-making-webmail-account-my-default-email-client.html

 

[taglock]

Hi I'm not sure how you would expect to send such an email,
Possibly give more details because I'm not seeing why you would want to use the Contact us or mail to link to the first place ?
http://www.sevenforums.com/browsers-mail/269402-making-webmail-account-my-default-email-client.html

I've edited to clarify a bit. Sometimes I click on a link without noticing or expecting it to be a mailto: link, so Windows Live Mail loads up when I don't want it to.

 

[ThrashZone]

Okay,
You can disable the Add-on Accelerator to not use live mail if that will help ?
Gear symbol on the top right and Manage add-ons,
Accelerators section uncheck the box to use Livemail,
See if this will accomplish,
You might need to close all browser windows before the setting to take effect,
Cheers.

 

[taglock]

Okay,
You can disable the Add-on Accelerator to not use live mail if that will help ?
Gear symbol on the top right and Manage add-ons,
Accelerators section uncheck the box to use Livemail,
See if this will accomplish,
You might need to close all browser windows before the setting to take effect,
Cheers.

There's no checkbox but the accelerator section of 'manage add-ons' shows Windows Live Mail accelerator as already disabled.

 

[ThrashZone]

Possibly there's another add-on in toolbars and extensions,
Take a screen shot of the show all add-ons pages possibly we can spot it,
Do you use the Bing bar ?

 

[Slartybart]

What you're looking for is:
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Default Programs\Set Associations

scroll down to protocols.

I didn't see a way to disassociate a protocol completely.

So maybe all you can do is disassocite the protocol and WLM app in
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Default Programs\Set Default Programs
-

 

[taglock]

ThrashZone, I disabled the Windows Live Mail entry in toolbars and extensions too but that didn't work either unfortunately.

Slartybart, I was able to switch the protocol from WLM to Chrome - and Chrome doesn't seem to do anything when I click a mailto: link - so that gets the job done, it seems.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[Slartybart]

Good thinking - associate the protocol with Chrome. Chrome doesn't know what to do with mailto:

Absolutely brilliant!

Gald I was able to point you in the direction you needed to figure something out.

 

[ThrashZone]

Good thinking
I was hoping just disabling the add-ons would suffice but yes associating the protocol with another program will work to it's just a little more difficult to change the setting if you need to,
Enabling an add-on is pretty easy,
Cheers.

 

[Slartybart]

You make a good point Mike.

If taglock changes his/her mind it isn't difficult to change the association, remembering that's what was done is the difficult part.

taglock: why not bookmark this thread and rename the bookmark to "_Mailto protocol changes" or something along those lines. The underscore prefix puts it at the top of the list when sorted by name.

:note: Any eMail client installed after this workaround might associate MAILTO: with the new client. I don't have a way to stop that from happening - but you know the steps to take.

 

[taglock]

The main point is that, in Windows 7, there's no simple way to remove a file/protocol association. You can only change an association. It looks like there are command-line/registry ways of deleting an association but I'm not qualified to recommend one.

It's also annoying that there are similarly named sections of the 'Default Programs' control panel.
There's a Set Program Associations and a separate Set Associations screen. I'd found the former and presumed the latter would (fail to) work in the same way. I don't see why they couldn't put those together as one panel - maybe they've done that in Win8?

Would also have been nice to not have the protocols hidden at the bottom of the Set Associations list.

 

[ThrashZone]

I'm not sure what this would do but your correct you have to set it to another program kind of surprised Chrome didn't do that for you installing in because Chrome always adjusts settings so it will function,
At last resort I would of suggested this in the default programs options list,
In you case you would Uncheck Live mail,

 

[Slartybart]

Mike: I read your post 13 and thought, at first, that it was a much more elegant solution.

I'm not familiar with Chrome, but I'll take a stab at why it didn't change the settings for MAILTO:

Chrome is a browser that doesn't concern itself with the MAILTO: protocol. Only apps that can process the protocol would/might setup a relationship.

The problem with disabling access for WLM (if I read your post correctly) is that it is a global configuration. Meaning you don't have access to WLM at all.

Too bad, I thought it was a good idea, a very good idea.

taglock: I agree with you on many points - Default Programs is difficult to wrap your head around. When I first joined SF, I decided to revamp a tutorial. This forced me to grapple with Default Programs. It's like Christmas Lights - every time I go there, I have to untangle it in my head... which one... oh yeah, what's next... oh yeah. I suppose it makes perfect sense to others, I'm not one of them - it's a struggle.

The other thing I have difficulty with is when the default associations are greyed out and cannot be changed. I close the windows and shake my head

Protocols at the bottom? I suppose that since there are relatively few, the developer could have grouped them at the top. But it's a rare case to change anything about a protocol, so the bottom makes sense too.

All I can add is that the options on the Default Programs window are also rarely changed, more of a "set it and forget" it configuration. Sometimes you go there to workaround an issue, as you did or correct the action of an application setting defaults when you don't want it to.

Thank goodness no one has to touch those settings regularly.

Bill

 

[ThrashZone]

That I know of,
Internet explorer will not open Chrome to use the mail to request, that's why I thought it was a good idea that the op came up with,
Also live mail that I know of doesn't have to default to send or receive mail, all it has to be is configured via servers,
Sure if you want to use other protocol to send from outside of live mail it does need to be default and enabled in protocols,
Chrome does not have a custom install anymore so it sets everything to it's own advantage kind of why I was surprised it wasn't already default,
Cheers.