What is the Default Browser of Client's computer in windows?

Question

Is there a way to find what is the default browser on a client's windows machine?

Is there a registry key or some other property that can help to find what is their default browser?

Answer 1

The registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\<protocol>\UserChoice\Progid

where is http, https, mapi, ftp etc)

You will see that in my case FirefoxURL is my default for HTTP making Firefox my default browser for HTTP.

Other browser records include:

• FirefoxURL (Firefox)
• ChromeHTML (Chrome)
• IE.HTTP (Internet Explorer)

Hope this helps.

Bonus points:

    $computerList = @("Server1", "server2")
$cred = Get-Credential

ForEach ($Computer in $computerList) {

    New-PSSession -ComputerName $Computer -Credential $cred | Out-Null
    Invoke-Command -Session (Get-PSSession) -ScriptBlock {
        Write-Host $env:COMPUTERNAME
        Write-Host (Get-ItemProperty HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\http\UserChoice).Progid
        Write-Host "`n"
    }
    Get-PSSession | Remove-PSSession

}

Something like this should help.. although it relies ona user being logged on and you having powershell remoting enabled (to enable powershell remoting, run Enable-PSRemoting -Force as a startup computer script via group policy)

Also, you can install PowerShell 4 on your windows 7 machines to allow this functionality - see http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/21016.how-to-install-windows-powershell-4-0.aspx for more

Answer 2

You don't need to edit the registry. Go to Control Panel -> All Control Panel Items -> Default Programs -> Associate a file type or protocol with a program.

Below the list of extensions (including .htm and .html) you will see the protocols, and you can view or change the associated program. The protocol list includes HTTP, HTTPS and FTP.

This applies to Win8.1. WinXP uses Explorer -> Tools -> Folder Options... -> File Types, and the protocols precede the extensions. I'm not sure about every intermediate version.