Question

In IE under Tools-> Internet Options -> Programs there’s a checkbox labelled “Tell me if Internet Explorer is not the default web browser.” What’s the registry key that corresponds to this checkbox? The reason I ask is that I want to suppress this check programmatically.

Clarification: I don’t want to find out the default browser, I want to stop IE checking if it is the default browser when it starts up.

Answer 1

It’s been answered in various ways over the web and here; here’s one question which covers it; Windows RegKey – Default Browser Application Path. Then it’s just checking if the path is the iexplore.exe path.

Update: I just checked what the key is that is modified when you deselect and reselect the “check default browser” option.

When you deselect it, the value
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Check_Associations is created, a REG_SZ containing the string “no”.

When you reselect it, HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Check_Associations is altered to “yes”.

So: if HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Check_Associations does not exist or is “yes”, it will check. To avoid that check (potentially user-unfriendly behaviour – use with care – create as “no” or set to “no” the value HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Check_Associations.