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My mail client is configured to open links in mails with Chrome. But sometimes, when I get a mail from our ticket system, which doesn't work at all on Chrome, I'd like to open the link with internet explorer.

Therefore I tought a Javascript user script would probably do the job. I've searched, and there seems to be a way, with using ActiveX. Unfortunately this won't work in Chrome. Does anybody know how I'd go about that? Is there some kind of plugin or class which would allow me to do this kind of thing in Chrome? Or is there a another solution?

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  • make the ticket system work on Chrome. Commented Jun 12, 2012 at 4:30
  • @ShivanRaptor That wasn't really helpfull. We didn't develop the ticket system, so making changes to it is not likely (also IE is company standard - I don't like that, but it is). Commented Jun 12, 2012 at 4:33
  • there really isn't though. javascript is not meant to control the client computer, it's meant to control the browser document. it would be a HUGE security issue if javascript was able to do anything near to what you're expecting. you're right that the IE solution is to use ActiveX, but that's the only browser that supports anything like that, and the user must accept or set configuration to allow ActiveX to run anyways Commented Jun 12, 2012 at 4:53
  • @ianpgall Well, I knew it wouldn't be possible with plain javascript. But after seeing IE withe ActiveX, I tought there is probably a way for Chrome also. I tried IETab, but most of the functions in the ticket system won't work. Commented Jun 12, 2012 at 5:02

2 Answers 2

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You could setup a custom protocol handler on your system.

For example, you could use a protocol in your html like this:

<a href="sd:http://www.example.com/">I get opened in IE</a>

Then you register sd as a protocol, and tell Windows to open those kind of links with IE

Registering an Application to a URL Protocol

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914(v=vs.85).aspx

ISSUE:

Looks like it passes in the protocol part, so IE wouldn't know what to do with that. You could write a very simple batch file to strip the protocol part, and then launch IE.

Here is an example batch file:

@echo off
set a=%1
start "" "c:\program files (x86)\internet explorer\iexplore.exe" %a:~3%

It creates a variable "a" that it sets to the first parameter "%1" then its starts iexplore, stripping off the first 3 characters of "a"

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That's a really interesting approach, I'll have a look at that.
I called my protocol sd. I entered "sd:www.google.com" into Run, and it starts IE, but it closes immediately. Is there any reason why?
My bad: it doesn't strip the protocol part from the beginning, so IE doesn't know what to do with that. You could write a very basic exe or script to strip out the protocol, and then launch IE
Ok, I had to strip the first 4 characters, because it also contains a " at the beginning. Now, how do I strip the " at the end? I'm not very keen on batch, and couldn't find something in the way you did it. start "" "c:\program files (x86)\internet explorer\iexplore.exe" %a:~4% is what I got now.
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There's not an easy solution. Any solution you could find for this would be pretty hacky as javascript is not designed to do this. The only solution I can think of is to use a chrome extension to launch an external application based on the url of the page visited, but I don't know if chrome extensions even have that capability.

Not sure how helpful it will be, but the chrome extension tutorial page might contain something useful.

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