Get Excel/Visio/Ect to open in native program and NOT in IE.

[Top Wop]

Ok, Mobius and any other Firefox fanboys need not apply in this thread because this is the real world and not lollypops and sugarsticks land. This is in a corporate environment where IE is used for many good reasons.

I want to open an Excel/Visio/Any Microsoft flavored file in its native program and not within IE. Typically if I need to work on a file I will right click save as and download it to disk from our intranet, but if I just want to quickly view its contents I want to just left click on the link and have it open in its native application and not within Internet Explorer because otherwise it presents various problems. We recently upgraded to Office 2003 (ick!). Is there any way I can do that?

[KompresZor]

Save this in Notepad as "OfficeDocsInOffice.reg"
Then open the file and merge and your done. If you have more then one machine to fix this is the easiest way to do it.

Make sure you back up your registry first!!

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Word.Document.8]
@="Microsoft Word Document"
"EditFlags"=dword:00010000
"BrowserFlags"=dword:00000008

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Excel.Sheet.8]
@="Microsoft Excel Worksheet"
"EditFlags"=dword:00010000
"BrowserFlags"=dword:00000008

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\PowerPoint.Show.8]
@="Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation"
"EditFlags"=dword:00010000
"BrowserFlags"=dword:00000008

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Visio.Drawing.6]
@="Microsoft Visio Drawing"
"EditFlags"=dword:00010000
"BrowserFlags"=dword:00000008 

[CDN_Merlin]

If you left click the link in IE, it asks you if you want to save or open. Click open and select the proper program for weach type. Then make sure you check the box for "use this every time" or something like that.

Don't need to hack the reigstry.

[Plebeian]

Except that with IE and Microsoft documents that go with applications you've got installed, it actually doesn't (that I've seen) give you the opportunity to view the document in Word/Excel/whatever instead of within the IE window.

Now, of course, there may be a preference somewhere, but I'm not sure. So hacking the registry may be the only way to fix it.

Hurray for the massive interdependency on IE's engine everywhere in Microsoft's apps.

[DCrazy]

That's not really an interdependecy, it's more like a feature Microsoft doesn't give you the obvious option of turning off. They are basically trying to compete with the likes of Adobe's PDF plugin by making Word and Excel documents just as annoyingly easy to have open in a Web browser. It's targeted towards intranets and is billed as one of the integral features of SharePoint.

But it's annoying to everyone else.

[Mobius]

But it's annoying to everyone else.

Amen to that.

Oh - and I wasn't going to tell you to upgrade to Firefox. I was *going* to direct you to the Folder Options in Windows Explorer - where you can set file types and associations based on file extension...