V2 Beta of BrowserTraySwitch is now available for the brave:
The beta should be fully functional with all features working. BUT.. this stuff is inherently weird and i advise people who are really scared of registry to not mess around with this.
If you don't have a need for this program, don't use it. It's only for people who really want to be able to switch their default browser very frequently (e.g. multiple times per day), and don't want to have to go through the normal processes.
I should have done it this way to begin with.. i would have if i had known how weird all these different browsers and registry settings would be.
Let me explain a bit about how the old way worked, and how the new way will work.
OLD WAY:
- It turns out there are more than a dozen various registry values that are set differently when the default browser is changed. These are not fully documented anywhere, and are a mishmash of strange items. Most of the dif registry values point to the browser exe, but some specify the icon to display, some specify a commandline to invoke the browser exe, and some are just weird. They used to be in LOCAL_MACHINE section of registry, now it seems they are in CURRENT_USER mostly.
- The old(current) version of BrowserTraySwitch takes the browser exe path as specified in the its config file, and tries to set all of these values. [It stopped working for you because BTS sets HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and it seems the new use of HKEY_CURRENT_USER was overiding that, rendering BTS settings ignored].
- Setting all of these values correctly is tricky -- especially when it comes to a browser deciding if it needs to ask the user if it should make itself default -- even a change in the uppercase/lowercase value of any registry key could make a browser think its not the default and offer to set it for you on startup.
- So what is the better way?
The New Way:
- BrowserTraySwitch knows which set of registry values are affected by the default browser.
- The new version lets you take a "snapshot" of these values and save them to different browser config files.
- Then it lets you restore these when you choose.
- The GUI for the user is unchanged.
- The main difference now is: You dont have to configure a settings file with your different browsers, but you DO have to take "snapshots" of each different browser you use after it is set to default.
Make sense?
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so true