How can I open a specific web shortcut (from the desktop) in a specific web browser?

May 5, 2007 1:34 PM

How can I open a specific web shortcut (from the desktop) in a specific web browser?

I can't believe this is as hard as I'm finding it to be so perhaps I'm missing something very very simple.

I have created a shortcut to a website that will only work in IE. I also have Firefox setup on this machine so that it is the default web browser. I want the user to use Firefox for almost everything web related they do, expect for this one site.

To make things simple on them, I put a copy of this shortcut on their desktop. I know if they open the shortcut from within IE's Favorites, they can go there no problem. But from the desktop, Firefox is the browser that gets launched and the site won't work in it. I'm really trying to make things as dead simple as I can for this lady.

So is this possible, or is she just going to have to go into IE and then launch it from there?

Thanks for any help you can provide folks!

posted by covert7 to computers & internet (13 comments total)

What's the operating system in question?
posted by alms at 1:42 PM on May 5, 2007

You can either use ieTab to have Firefox open that site using the IE render engine, or try this:

1. Create a new shortcut on your desktop, and under "Location" just type "explorer". Go through the rest of the Wizard, until the shortcut is on the desktop
2. Right click on the shortcut and under the "Shortcut" tab, under Target, add the URL you want to open in IE after "explorer.exe", so it'll read:

"%windir%\explorer.exe http://www.metafilter.com"

or whatever site you want. Hope that helps!
posted by mikeyk at 1:45 PM on May 5, 2007

You could try putting a made-up extension on the file, like ".poo" or something, and then when you double click it and pick IE and "always use this application" or whatevah. No windows machine available, can't test it.
posted by fleacircus at 1:51 PM on May 5, 2007

The made-up extension doesn't work.

IETab will, though. You can configure it so that certain sites (or whole domains) ALWAYS open in IE, even if FF is your default.
posted by desjardins at 2:34 PM on May 5, 2007

Mikey's works, except that instead of explore.exe or %windir%\explore.exe you need to navigate to c:\program files\internet explorer and pick iexplore.exe. then put the URL in the shortcut AFTER the close quotation marks for the path to IE. You can do it after you choose iexplore.exe in the "new shortcut" wizard by pasting the URL after the quotes in the "type the location" field.
posted by rhizome at 2:50 PM on May 5, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

the same technique works for firefox as well.
posted by rhizome at 2:52 PM on May 5, 2007

What rhizome said. Just make a copy of the Firefox icon, right-click and get properties and put the web address after the firefox.exe
posted by stew560 at 4:55 PM on May 5, 2007

(after the ")
posted by stew560 at 4:55 PM on May 5, 2007

"explorer.exe" is the Windows shell.

It has nothing whatever to do with "internet explorer", which is "iexplore.exe".
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:57 PM on May 5, 2007

SCDB, I found that creating a shortcut on the desktop to "%windir%\explorer.exe" (rather than just "explorer"), and then appending " http://www.metafilter.com" to it by right-clicking the shortcut and editing its properties, works fine. Win XP, IE7, YMMV. The fact that explorer is the Windows shell has nothing to do with it.
posted by Aloysius Bear at 5:08 PM on May 5, 2007

"explorer.exe" is the Windows shell.
it's also the file manager
posted by muteh at 5:31 PM on May 5, 2007

And it also launches Internet Explorer when asked to open an http:// URL. You can try this for yourself - just open My Computer, then paste http://www.metafilter.com/ into the address bar.
posted by flabdablet at 6:53 PM on May 6, 2007

rhizome's answer got it working perfectly for me. Thanks.
posted by jeffmik at 9:07 AM on September 20, 2007