Comments on: Fix Search Association Settings in Vista

By: Libby

Libby — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:21:40 +0000

I can’t merge that file, not even as an administrator. Any suggestions? The instructions previous to that did not work…

By: Happy Camer

Happy Camer — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:44:57 +0000

I can NOT tell you how helpful this was! The problem kicked right in with SP1. Funny story, I had to uninstall SP1 due to a driver issue which was later resolved so I reinstalled SP1. The SECOND time I installed SP1, I had to rerun this procedure again!! So I suspect it may be more common that you believe. In any case, this procedure works perfectly with No Program Associated error when using Search after SP1 install.

THANK YOU!!

By: Nathan

Nathan — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 03:23:46 +0000

[b]longerlife[/b]’s method is much better. Don’t be messing with registry stuff when Vista has a 4 step method like this in place. Worked PERFECTLY.

By: Ramesh Srinivasan

Ramesh Srinivasan — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 06:09:20 +0000

@rsw: See http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/156/1/Error-Registry-editing-has-been-disabled-by-your-administrator-when-you-open-the-Registry-Editor-in-Windows-Vista.html

By: rsw

rsw — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:18:54 +0000

ramesh – what if you get the error message when you enter regedit and cannot even get to the registry editor?

By: Matty

Matty — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:39:34 +0000

Sorted, thanks a lot, managed to sort the problems out using the fixes here, cheers guys!

By: ellaina

ellaina — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:05:54 +0000

Thought I should add what worked for me. I did steps 1-12 and that did not fix my issue. I then attempted to merge the provided fix, and got the “error accessing the registry” message. I then tried setting permissions for all the reg directories in the fix, and still received the error. I then manually created the ’search’ key under [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations, went back to the Set File associations dialog, and the Search protocol was listed. Changed program to explorer, and looks like I’m good to go.

By: Eriq Cook

Eriq Cook — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:08:17 +0000

To longerlife: excellent solution. Didn’t work until I read your response. That worked perfectly injunction with manually changing a few of the registry item permission settings. Thank you.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:04:08 +0000

Longerlife’s tip and the search tip combined worked like a charm for me. Thank Goodness that horrid annoyance is over.

By: Ariane

Ariane — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:00:28 +0000

Many thanks for this. Like Carel, I also got a “cannot access registry” error message when I tried to merge the file, but I already knew to alter the permissions of the keys that the file changes…It took a while but it finally worked. There are many “fixes” for this issue on the net, but yours is the only one that actually did the job. Nice one, Ramesh.