Recently I was presented with a problem that at least initially appeared a little perplexing. While the person was able to receive e-mail they were unable to activate any of the HTML Links that were imbedded in the e-mail. The person was using Outlook Express version 6.0 as the default mail client. Now I know what you may be thinking they should be using Netscape Mail, Thunderbird, or possibly Evolution. However I think I will entertain that discussion at another time.

Like any reasonably helpful geek I felt compelled to offer some assistance. OK, truth be told I was nagged into submission. Nevertheless, I offered a popular solution to this dilemma that was known to have great success:

1. Click the Start button, and then click Run.
2. On the Run type regsvr32 urlmon.dll and press enter.
3. In the RegSrv32 dialog box, click the OK button.
4. Repeat this procedure for each of the following files, substituting the file name typed next to Open in step 2 for each of the files listed below:

regsvr32 mshtml.dll
regsvr32 shdocvw.dll
regsvr32 browseui.dll
regsvr32 msjava.dll

However while this reasonably popular solution does resolve quite a number of these issues sadly in this case it did not.

1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. Go to Tools | Folder Options | File Types.
3. Scroll down to URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol and select it.
4. Click Edit or Advanced, depending on your Windows version.
5. Select ‘open’.
6. Click Edit.
7. Then uncheck the Use DDE selection box.
8. Click OK, then OK again, finally one more OK to close the window.

Eureka!! Now each HTML link that was embedded in e-mail was able to be activated with out issue.