Well, why not.

Furcadia looks at a specific key in the registry for the default program to use for opening links in the program. The specific key it looks at is:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.htm

Where it looks for the default action to open that file type. The default action indicates the interface type through which windows locates the program to open for that file type. The problem with manually editing the registry is that there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that goes on which you may not be aware of, even in dealing with windows for as long as I have, I still am surprised by, things.

There is an easier way to indirectly edit the registry, and that is through Folder Options.

Locate the HTM entry in the list, then click on the Advanced. There might be a possibility that the button is not there, instead it may be Restore. This generally means that the normal default action for the file has been changed, and windows is detecting a "backup" entry in the registry. Go on and click the Restore, the button will change to Advanced. And now click the Advanced.

Usually, there's at least one entry in the Actions list, and usually it's open. And usually it's bold. Bold means that this would be the default action to do with this file type, if the word is not bold, it is ok to click the Set Default button to make open the default action. The next step we want to do is to click the Edit.

Heh, you are looking at my default entry for opening HTM file types, I use a browser called Lynx, kinky.

That aside, you will probably find something else there, and it's not your desired program for opening this type of file, so we want to click on that Browse button to get to your preferred browser.

Whenever you open one of these dialogs, there's no telling where it will open, for this purpose, I have this image already showing firefox as being the selected program. One of the issues always with this is that you need to know just where the heck the program is on your hard drive, generally, it should be in one of the Program FIles folders, which is usually on the C: drive.

Once you get there, select firefox, and click the open.

This next part is very important, before clicking the OK, you need to make sure that there the entry is "Quoted", there needs to be a " at each end, from before the C:, to the end of the EXE, but not surrounding anything after the exe. Windows might, and I say might, put a %1 after the entry, if it doesn't, no biggie. So, you should have:

"C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"

as the text in the box, or, whichever your preferred browser is. I only have either IE, FireFox, Mozilla, and Lynx to demonstrate with on my machine. Oh, and HotJava, but heck, I collect unusual programs, ...

Click Ok to click the Action Editor, then Click OK to close the File Type Editor. and finally click OK to close the Folder Options.

Things should work now, clicking a hyperlink in furcadia should open your preferred browser now.

ALTERNATE METHOD

Of course there's more than one way to do this. The alternate method involves right clicking on an HTM file in a folder somewhere, and using the Open With dialog to force windows to change the association. The bonus on using this method is that windows will probably change the icon for that file type as well.

This will bring up the following dialog:

There's also a pretty good chance that your browser of choice may already be in that list, if so, click it, ensure that the "Always use this program to open these files" is checked, and then click OK.

If not, then you will have to use the Other button to locate your preferred browser, and then do the above. See note above about knowing where things are on your hard drive regarding the Open With dialog, ...