How to make shortcut to ftp site open in windows explorer not IE

Question

Running windows7 i have a shortcut to an FTP site. When you make this shortcut and point it to a location like ftp://127.0.0.1/ it automatically defaults to opening in Internet Explorer. This is not ideal.

I would like to have a shortcut that opens directly to Windows Explorer, as this is infinitely more useful for my purposes.

Answer 1

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Right-click on "My Computer" in the navigation panel on the left
3. Choose "Add new network location"
4. Use the wizard to create a new network location for your FTP site
5. The FTP site will now show up in My Computer as a network location. You can make shortcuts from there by right-clicking on the connection and choosing "send to" > "desktop (as shortcut)".

Answer 2

Create a shortcut with the path set to:

%windir%\explorer.exe ftp://<server address>

Answer 3

The simplest way to control this kind of thing is to download the freeware FileTypesMan from Nirsoft. Make sure that the option to display URL protocols is enabled: on the menu, select Options > Show URL Protocols. Scroll down to FTP and click on it. Double-click the open entry in the lower pane and point it to Explorer instead of Internet Explorer. The only command line argument you should probably leave in is "%1".