In earlier Windows versions, I could easily force Windows to handle mailto: links in a particular way, specifically to open the Compose window for my GMail account, by at least tweaking the registry.
Now, in Windows 7, I can't find the old locations, or at least they don't seem to work the way I was hoping.
When I open the "Set associations" window and open the dialog for the mailto protocol, it lists Thunderbird and Windows mail, both of which are installed now.
What I'd like instead would be to open the following program (shortcut):
"%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --app=https://mail.google.com/mail?extsrc=mailto&url=%1
This will, if I run it from my Start->Run dialog, pop open a new Google Chrome (my current browser) window, and open the compose dialog for my GMail account.
Does anyone know how I can do one of the following:
- Either get the above shortcut added as a program in the Set Associations dialog, so I can pick it
- Or, forcibly edit the registry to use that shortcut string instead, and in this case, what part of the registry do I need to edit?
Any help would be most welcome.
Note that I have tried the most-often cited way to do this, by editing the HKCR\mailto\shell\open\command registry path, this does not seem to have any effect.
I'm also running 64-bit Windows 7, there's some Wow6432Node registry keys spread around, could there be a different registry location I need to edit?
Also note that I'm testing both clicking on a link in a browser, as well as Start->Run and entering a mailto: address there. In my case, both still opens up Windows Live Mail which I installed for the news client interface.