Browser Tray Switch

[grandpastan]

I have installed BTS but can't get it to work properly. It shows the browsers that I am using, and changes the icon in the tray, but it doesn't change the default browser. I also get an error message; The expected backup .reg files were not found, please restart program. I am using Win XP pro Sp2

[mouser]

it will refuse to change browser if it doesn't find the backups were created properly.

you could try running the BackupCurrentBrowserSettings.bat batch file yourself in the BrowserBackup directory and see if you get any errors; perhaps you don't have permissions to access registry, or maybe there is something with sp2 that's causing that backup script to fail to export the registry keys?  i'll try to test it on an sp2 machine if you can't make progres. let me know.

[Carol Haynes]

I use it on XP SP2 and iut works fine, in a limited way.

However, I don't use it anymore as it isn't really very well behaved with the latest version of Firefox, and doesn't seem to work properly with Maxthon.

Firefox obviously uses some settings that aren't dealt with in BTS

Maxthon seems to have its own way of distinguishing whether it is the default browser or IE is (which it is based on). I found BTS got confused when using Maxthon.

[mouser]

the browsers frequently still pop up and say "xxx is not set as default browser" even with bts sets them so -
but that doesn't mean that bts hasn't done its job; you just have to disable this warning message in your browser.

if its otherwise not doing its job let me know.

[Carol Haynes]

Actually I found that the particular combination of browsers I mentioned above just didn't work with BTS. I can't remember the details because I haven't used it for a while, but IIRC when Maxthon was set as default browser BTS tried to change to others but failed (ie. Maxthon remained default).

Certainly swapping IE <> Maxthon didn't seem to work - but I think that was to do with the fact that Maxthon handles the default settings separately for both browsers in its own Options Menu.

IIRC Maxthon <> Firefox changes didn't work properly either.

[mouser]

i'll have to check out maxthon.. it amazes me how many different ways there are to capture the default browser.
or maybe this is a win xp sp2 issue..

[grandpastan]

Thanks mouser. I tried the manual backup. It seems to be working now. You guys are great.

[mouser]

great to hear it

i'll try to do some more experimenting and figure out why it failed to run it automatically and add a note to the error message instructing user to run it manually.  thanks for the report.

[m_s]

I have just started using BTS - on the back of reading this thread, in fact - and I just want to report a) that it's great!, and b) that it's working fine for me for switching between FF1.0.7 (last night), FF1.5 (this morning), Opera, and IE.  Thanks again, Mouser, for a tiny little gem that makes working much easier.

[grandpastan]

Hey mouser. It looks like the reason It wouldn't back itself up was my Microsoft anti-spyware was not letting the script run. As soon as I shut it down, I was able to run it.

Thanks again.

[mouser]

another great example of bill gates software:

it WILL let my program change important registry entries which changes your default browser.
it WONT let my program simply make a copy of existing registry settings to a file for backup.