Switching from Microsoft Edge gets more annoying in Windows 11

[LAwLz]

On 8/19/2021 at 8:09 PM, Senzelian said:

I just checked my Windows 11 settings and I don't see the problem.

 

I clicked on the Chrome app and was able to select which files to open with Chrome. For example I can choose .pdf files to be opened with Adobe Acrobat and .html files or https/http protocols to be opened with Chrome.

 

Looks to me I just got more control and an easier to understand UI. Did I miss something?

The problem seems to be that there is no longer a simple "I want this as my default browser" option like on pretty much all other OSes.

If you want to change default browser, you're probably going to have to change each individual file type to open with let's say Firefox.

In one way, this is better than before because you now have more granular control. The drawback is that you are forced to use this granular control, which is kind of pointless for most people.

 

There isn't really any reason why you should have to change file association for .html .htm .shtml .xhtml and so on. For some users this might be beneficial, but or 99.999% of users forcing this level of granular control is just confusing and annoying (which is probably Microsoft's goal).

 

If you ask me, there should be a "set default browser" option that automatically changes the file type association of the most-commonly-opened-with-browser file types in the browser you set it to, then have the option for people who want more granular control to change the individual file type associations.

In fact, I am pretty sure Microsoft already has this function programmed, because they have made it super easy to make Edge the default browser. You just need like 2 clicks and Edge will be set as the default the way I just described.

[Stahlmann]

3 hours ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

While that may be true, it does not have the ability to put all my tabs to sleep on demand like Opera GX does. Good luck managing this in any other browser without restarting it, with the major potential of losing tabs. 

Apparently you have a problem that i never had, nor did i ever think someone had. Wtf are you doing with 5115 tabs? Do you ever close any tab in your browser? The most i've probably ever had was 5 in normal use, maybe 50 at a time when modding skyrim

 

But you can still "pin" a tab, which basically restores the page after closing the browser.

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

The problem seems to be that there is no longer a simple "I want this as my default browser" option like on pretty much all other OSes.

If you want to change default browser, you're probably going to have to change each individual file type to open with let's say Firefox

Its kind of a weird problem - which i failed to replicate when i tried - "set default browser" and "open with" are two completely different things, you *do not want* a browser opening any file types never ever (except maybe pdfs?) thats why its not a default  option  in *any* OS ive seen.

 

This really sounds like making a problem out of thin air where naturally no solution exists. If my browser ever starts opening files nilly willy is the day i'll nuke it. = )

[Wh0_Am_1]

18 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Apparently you have a problem that i never had, nor did i ever think someone had. Wtf are you doing with 5115 tabs? Do you ever close any tab in your browser? The most i've probably ever had was 5 in normal use, maybe 50 at a time when modding skyrim

 

But you can still "pin" a tab, which basically restores the page after closing the browser.

My problem I close ~30 to 35 tabs a day.... and then proceed to open 35 to 50 more.... Thereby I have multiple windows for the work and play I do, but I also have YT videos, articles, and graphics novels for months, yeah no I have quite the que, and not nearly that much time to enjoy it. On the other hand I sometime stumble across news from last year or earlier this year, and it helps me keep my perspectives in check, which is important in these turbulent times. 

P.S. I also retain my data, sources, and other tabs for issues, *disputes and etc, until I come back and find them to no longer be relevant, or such issues are resolved. 

*'cause sometime we just can't agree on how to help people in the best way or in general.

[Sprawlie]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Microsoft's own fine print where they recommend 3rd party backup for Office 365

I have 3rd party backups and they're all rights encrypted now too

 

microsoft made a change about 2 months ago. It used to be that you could extract emails unencrpyted in PST format, which allowed 3rd party's to also get unencrypted messaging.

 

this changed arbitrarily and they decided you could no longer download PST's that way. So even my backups are littered with random RMS emails that we can't read.

 

Microsoft has now recognized that the initial decision to do this was bad. But because the product manager doesn't accept it as wrong, he wont reverse the decision. So there's a new tool that we should be getting in the next 6 months that we can run against our RMS emails to decrypt them offline.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

39 minutes ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

My problem I close ~30 to 35 tabs a day.... and then proceed to open 35 to 50 more.... Thereby I have multiple windows for the work and play I do, but I also have YT videos, articles, and graphics novels for months, yeah no I have quite the que, and not nearly that much time to enjoy it. On the other hand I sometime stumble across news from last year or earlier this year, and it helps me keep my perspectives in check, which is important in these turbulent times.

Theres a very handy feature for this in most browsers, its called "history" , even more handy feature is called "bookmarks", this also should save a ton of resources compared to just leaving everything open. 

 

Thats besides chrome as most other browsers can restore tabs of course…

 

Basically i do everything you do, except i dont have a gazillion tabs open, which seems really prohibitive in terms of resources / time… if something interests me ill check it asap or at least within a week or so (talking about my pc here, my phone is a bit of a different use case, see below)

 

I would actually recommend to set your browser to clear all tabs on exit, it will make you much more conscious about what really interests you (because  lets be honest, you will *never* read or consume these "5000+" tabs, time is finite after all. 

 

56 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

maybe 50 at a time when modding skyrim

hehe, 50!

get on my level

 

 

"92"! Im so glad Samsung browser maxes out at 100 tbh lol…

 

you can "lock" tabs tho, which is pretty handy = )

 

 

*you may be wondering why i dl mods on my phone - lots of reasons, one of which is i have automatic backups this way, and also sometimes mods are from questionable origin, in which case my phone also acts as a "sandbox" before i upload them to VirusTotal…  : D

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If you want to change default browser, you're probably going to have to change each individual file type to open with let's say Firefox

Shouldn't Firefox just provide the prompt on first run and under the setting menu to just change itself to the default browser and it goes and sets it for everything for you? I really doubt in practice you have to or it is the only way to go through each type in the Windows Settings menu and change them all individually.

[Sprawlie]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Shouldn't Firefox just provide the prompt on first run and under the setting menu to just change itself to the default browser and it goes and sets it for everything for you? I really doubt in practice you have to or it is the only way to go through each type in the Windows Settings menu and change them all individually.

Unfortunately Windows doesn't let Apps do this for certain defined application categoires.

 

Web browser is one of them. now if you select "make firefox my default" it'll give you instructions how to go into your settings and change your defaults manually

 

Microsoft has made it annoying in win10. haven't even looked at 11 yet

[Mark Kaine]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Shouldn't Firefox just provide the prompt on first run and under the setting menu to just change itself to the default browser and it goes and sets it for everything for you? I really doubt in practice you have to or it is the only way to go through each type in the Windows Settings menu and change them all individually.

But why would you want, for example an "exe" or a "bin" or a "jpg" open with a browser? Wouldnt that mess up everything? Seems like im missing something here lol… 

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Sprawlie said:

microsoft made a change about 2 months ago. It used to be that you could extract emails unencrpyted in PST format, which allowed 3rd party's to also get unencrypted messaging.

What backup product are you using because the one I'm using, Commvault, does not require Microsoft PST extraction feature/API at all. Everything is backed up at a per user mailbox message and if I want to restore to PST it comes out of the Commvault backups with no interaction with Microsoft Office 365 at all and just uses the Office Tools installed on the proxy server to generate the PST.

 

I don't think the issue comes from any PST extraction features at all (for your workflow yes but I don't think in general) but more rather the Right Management Feature, Message Tagging and Message Encryption. I'm not exactly sure what Microsoft actually allows in regards to administrative access to user emails when they are encrypted however "the way it's supposed to work" is if the email was not addressed to the administrative account as a recipient then there "should" be no way to read the message. In practice I'm not sure what Microsoft actually allows as it keeps changing all the time.

 

From what I can tell that way Commvault is backing up the emails I would be unaffected, we are about to roll out message encryption with the Sensitive Classification but we're still doing user acceptance testing of classification in general and external access etc.

 

Quote

Is delegated access supported with opening encrypted messages? Even if a delegate has full access to another user's mailbox?
Delegated access of encrypted mail is supported in Outlook on the web, Outlook for Mac, Outlook for iOS, and Outlook for Android. Outlook for Windows does not support delegated access.

Commvault goes in via Outlook Web API and reads email messages that way and has delegated access to every discovered mailbox included for backup. So I think I'm fine? 

 

If so then nothing changes for me, yay. Just do message restore for user and pick PST as restore type in the Commvault job settings.

[Sprawlie]

I'm using Veeam through a managed service provider for the backups.

 

Even though the account that uses it has full decryption rights, there are RMS protected emails literrred everywhere in the backups starting at the exact same time the PST extracts also started showing similar behaviour

When I poked Microsoft this is the line in the doucumentation they keep pointing me towards:

 

Quote

• As previously explained, to decrypt RMS-protected messages when you export them, you have to export the search results as individual messages. If you export search results to a PST file, RMS-protected messages remain encrypted.

 

This is what's causing me massive problems. Especially when  I have to regularly for legal matters and police investigations provide extracts of emails in the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands (I literally just gave police about 500gb of emails last week)

 

It was this change a couple months ago that some product manager forced to happen and now refuses to back off. Hence another product team creating another completely separate just to allow us to decrypt PSTs after the fact now

[leadeater]

36 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

But why would you want, for example an "exe" or a "bin" or a "jpg" open with a browser? Wouldnt that mess up everything? Seems like im missing something here lol… 

If Firefox is dumb enough to not know which file types to set then I don't think one should be using Firefox 

 

37 minutes ago, Sprawlie said:

Unfortunately Windows doesn't let Apps do this for certain defined application categoires.

 

Web browser is one of them. now if you select "make firefox my default" it'll give you instructions how to go into your settings and change your defaults manually

 

Microsoft has made it annoying in win10. haven't even looked at 11 yet

It's possible just different and ass backwards to do it.

 

Dism.exe /online /Export-DefaultAppAssociations:C:\DefaultApps.xml

#Apply changes to XML as required

Dism.exe /online /Import-DefaultAppAssociations:C:\DefaultApps.xml

#Furiously complain how stupid this is, even when using GPO because you still have to do the export, shhhhhhhhhhhh
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-deploy-guide/set-the-default-browser-using-group-policy

 

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, Sprawlie said:

 

It was this change a couple months ago that some product manager forced to happen and now refuses to back off. Hence another product team creating another completely separate just to allow us to decrypt PSTs after the fact now

[Insert loud screaming at how wonderful Cloud/SaaS services are]

 

It's like they took a look at the Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery principles and did a Find and Replace for Integration = Irritation and Delivery = Destabilizing 

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Shouldn't Firefox just provide the prompt on first run and under the setting menu to just change itself to the default browser and it goes and sets it for everything for you? I really doubt in practice you have to or it is the only way to go through each type in the Windows Settings menu and change them all individually.

It depends.

 

With Windows 10, some programs (web browsers being one of them) are no longer allowed to set themselves as default.

When you install Firefox, it will prompt you to set it as the default browser. If you click "make default", it will open the settings app on the "default apps" page, and then you have to click on "web browser" and manually change that to Firefox.

This is how the "default apps" page looks in Windows 10:

Spoiler

 

 

In Windows 11, it seems like programs are now somewhat allowed to set themselves as default automatically again. I just tried installing Firefox on Windows 11 and when I clicked "used as default", some of the file associations were automatically changed to Firefox.

"URL:HTTP", "URL:HTTPS", ".html" and ".html" were all changed to Firefox automatically, which is good.

However, Edge was still the default for several other "browser" files such as .mht and .shtml. That's probably just Firefox not setting itself as the default program for those files though, not something malicious from Microsoft.

 

So it seems like Microsoft have actually fixed one dick-move (now allows browsers to automatically make themselves the default for files such as .html), which I will give them a golf clap for.

The bad thing is that they have also removed the rather convenient "Default app: Web Browser" thing you can see above, along with all the other "default app" categories.

So now instead of having an easy built in way of setting for example your default browser or music player, you have to rely on the program itself to have a "make this my default X program" function, or manually set for example your music player to be the default program for each individual audio file format.

 

I think the problem Chrome is having right now is that it is programmed to behave according to Windows 10 functions (where it's not allowed to set itself as the default browser and instead instruct the user to do it). Google should be able to do it the way Firefox does and associate itself with some "browser files" like URL:HTTP and .html once Google updates their program.

 

 

So in summary, the way I see it this happened:

1) Microsoft are being dickheads and block programs from setting themselves as default in Windows 10. They also introduce the "default browser" option in the OS.

2) Chrome has to work around this by instructing users to do it manually using the "default browser" option in the OS.

3) Windows 11 is released/updated and Microsoft removes the "default browser" option in the OS, making it work the way it did in Windows 7 again.

4) Chrome (will probably) get updated to be able to set itself as the default again and overall it will be easier for users to set their browser to something other than Edge.

 

Firefox probably works because it never stopped trying to associate itself with .html files, even though it just failed on Windows 10 (but did work on Windows 7). If Mozilla never removed the old way of setting itself as the default, it will now work again in Windows 11. Meanwhile, I think Chrome stopped trying to set itself as the default for .html because it didn't work in Windows 10, and now Google has to re-add that function again with Windows 11.

 

 

Personally, I'd want something in-between the way Windows 10 works and the way Windows 11 currently works.

If I were in charge, I'd have a "default browser" option in the OS, and if you set that it would associate the chosen browser with some things you typically use your browser for. Things like URL:HTTP and .html. Like in Windows 10.

I'd also want browsers to be able to set themselves as the default like they can in Windows 11.

I would also want the "default apps" menu from Windows 11 (with some minor tweaks), but I want that under a menu called "Choose default application by file type".

The current "Choose default application by file type" in Windows 10 is awful because it doesn't have a search function.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

With Windows 10, some programs (web browsers being one of them) are no longer allowed to set themselves as default.

When you install Firefox, it will prompt you to set it as the default browser. If you click "make default", it will open the settings app on the "default apps" page, and then you have to click on "web browser" and manually change that to Firefox.

This is how the "default apps" page looks in Windows 10:

Scroll up a few comments, all that's required is for Firefox to do the XML export, modify the XML and import back in. Down side, requires privilege elevation. 

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Scroll up a few comments, all that's required is for Firefox to do the XML export, modify the XML and import back in. Down side, requires privilege elevation. 

Huh, I didn't know you could do that. Does it work on Windows Home edition as well? Since that doesn't allow you to change GPOs.

 

In any case, that seems like a really clunky way of doing something that I think the OS should just support out of the box in an easy way.

[Craftyawesome]

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

"URL:HTTP", "URL:HTTPS", ".html" and ".html" were all changed to Firefox automatically, which is good.

However, Edge was still the default for several other "browser" files such as .mht and .shtml.

It actually looks like windows 10's web browser selection doesn't change much more than this. Here is what my windows 10 has for chrome's file types after setting it as default.

 

(everything below did not have a default)

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Huh, I didn't know you could do that. Does it work on Windows Home edition as well? Since that doesn't allow you to change GPOs

Far as I know yes, wouldn't be possible for OEMs to build images if DISM wasn't allowed to run and many of the Windows Features you enable in Programs and Features is just a GUI front end for the DISM command.

 

8 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

that seems like a really clunky way of doing something

It 1000% is. Not only that it uses weird Program IDs and stuff, I don't know, it's horrible and not my problem anymore, so damn glad it's not. Why isn't there just a simple PowerShell command for default application settings, with the amount of things you can do with PS why is this not one of them?

 

Microsoft is supposed to be a PowerShell first company now, or was. Absolutely nothing should not have a PowerShell command to configure it, this should be mandatory.

[Wh0_Am_1]

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Theres a very handy feature for this in most browsers, its called "history" , even more handy feature is called "bookmarks", this also should save a ton of resources compared to just leaving everything open. 

 

Thats besides chrome as most other browsers can restore tabs of course…

 

Basically i do everything you do, except i dont have a gazillion tabs open, which seems really prohibitive in terms of resources / time… if something interests me ill check it asap or at least within a week or so (talking about my pc here, my phone is a bit of a different use case, see below)

 

I would actually recommend to set your browser to clear all tabs on exit, it will make you much more conscious about what really interests you (because  lets be honest, you will *never* read or consume these "5000+" tabs, time is finite after all. 

 

History gets buried way too easily, and bookmarks are too annoying to deal with.  Sleeping the tabs in Opera GX does the job fine, it's only resource intensive if I loose tabs and have to recover them. Otherwise sleeping the tabs seems to do the trick just fine. BTW that continue where you left off button is unreliable I have lost soooooo many tabs back when I still used Chrome.

[Stahlmann]

22 hours ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

My problem I close ~30 to 35 tabs a day.... and then proceed to open 35 to 50 more.... Thereby I have multiple windows for the work and play I do, but I also have YT videos, articles, and graphics novels for months, yeah no I have quite the que, and not nearly that much time to enjoy it. On the other hand I sometime stumble across news from last year or earlier this year, and it helps me keep my perspectives in check, which is important in these turbulent times. 

P.S. I also retain my data, sources, and other tabs for issues, *disputes and etc, until I come back and find them to no longer be relevant, or such issues are resolved. 

*'cause sometime we just can't agree on how to help people in the best way or in general.

Interesting, just goes to show how different some people use the internet

 

I myself just can't live with such a "mess". I like to keep things organized and close every tab that i don't immediately need anymore. And i specifically set it up so edge doesn't automatically open any recent tabs on startup. I just set my YT sub box as my starting page and go on from there.

[Stahlmann]

21 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

hehe, 50!

get on my level

 

 

"92"! Im so glad Samsung browser maxes out at 100 tbh lol…

 

you can "lock" tabs tho, which is pretty handy = )

 

 

*you may be wondering why i dl mods on my phone - lots of reasons, one of which is i have automatic backups this way, and also sometimes mods are from questionable origin, in which case my phone also acts as a "sandbox" before i upload them to VirusTotal…  : D

I just open tabs for all the mods i want to download and then download everything at once. Currently sitting at around 720 installed mods  But apart from skyrim modding i never felt the need to have more than 5 tabs or so open at a time.

[Mark Kaine]

41 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

I just open tabs for all the mods i want to download and then download everything at once.

yeah, the thing is these monster hunter mods sometimes have weird instructions or requirements and the golden rule is "do not use vortex, vortex is trash™" when it comes to these, so its better to just have the tabs open, kinda like an instruction booklet…

 

And yeah, at the beginning i thought 1GB for mods seems a lot, am now at ~5…

 

45 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

But apart from skyrim modding i never felt the need to have more than 5 tabs or so open at a time.

right, i mean i sometimes have like 10+ open when im on a video marathon - and really the nice part is if i want to watch later it'll be in history, otherwise its sometimes hard to find a particular  video again, but i always close all tabs when exiting, i also have it set to not run in the background, i hate clutter after all. : P

[Stahlmann]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

yeah, the thing is these monster hunter mods sometimes have weird instructions or requirements and the golden rule is "do not use vortex, vortex is trash™" when it comes to these, so its better to just have the tabs open, kinda like an instruction booklet…

 

And yeah, at the beginning i thought 1GB for mods seems a lot, am now at ~5…

I'm at 70GB worth of mods. And use "Mod Organizer 2". It's the best mod manager that works with nexus download links directly. The thing about that one is that it doesn't alter any game files. It uses some sort of virtual game directory to install your mods, then loads them when you launch the game.

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

I'm at 70GB worth of mods. And use "Mod Organizer 2"

70GB! Yeah, i tried that once, it doesnt work well with MHW, but i hear its kind of a necessity for Skyrim because the mod order matters, with MH you have 'slots' and often need to rename or even hex edit things, no mod loader can really deal with that (and makes it difficult  to fix if something goes wrong)

[Wictorian]

On 8/23/2021 at 2:46 PM, Stahlmann said:

Apparently you have a problem that i never had, nor did i ever think someone had. Wtf are you doing with 5115 tabs? Do you ever close any tab in your browser? The most i've probably ever had was 5 in normal use, maybe 50 at a time when modding skyrim

 

But you can still "pin" a tab, which basically restores the page after closing the browser.

Opera is stupid. They probably don't close windows. Also Edge has the feature to make tabs sleep. I think Edge introduced it.