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Environment: Windows 11, Office 2021 running on computer, not in "cloud".

My default browser is Firefox and I don't want to change that. But some websites are not compatible with Firefox, so when I make a document in MS Word or Excel, I'd like to set links to those sites to open in Edge.

Is there way to do that?

Preferably without VBA, but VBA okay if necessary.

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1 Answer 1

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Current versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11 feature a protocol handler "microsoft-edge" that is by default associated to Microsoft Edge. One can use the insert hyperlink feature in Excel and Word and then for example insert

microsoft-edge:http://www.google.com

as link which will then open Edge with the specified URL.
This will however trigger a "Microsoft Office has identified a potential security concern" dialog when opening the hyperlink

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  • Easy and works! Thank you. Interesting that Office would issue a security warning on opening an MS browser! Question: Are there other protocol handlers for other browsers if I want to do this with Chrome or others? Is there a list of such handlers somewhere?
    – NewSites
    Commented Oct 8, 2023 at 18:48
  • You can view all the protocol handlers registered by Windows by going into Default apps of the Settings app and selecting "Choose by protocol/ link type", it will list all of the protocol handlers and their current app. I don't think/know of any specific to Chrome/Firefox etc. The microsoft-edge one only really exists so Microsoft themselves can force certain stuff (like the start menu search) to open inside Edge. I think the warning appears since office has a very strict whitelist on what it considers safe
    – User025
    Commented Oct 8, 2023 at 18:53
  • Hmm, at Settings > Apps > Default apps > Related settings, I don't have a "Choose by protocol/link type". I do have a "Choose defaults by link type". When I go there, some of the entries have a value suffixed with "Protocol", such as URL:Acrobat Protocol and URL:MailTo Protocol. But there are two entries for Edge: "Microsoft-Edge" and "Microsoft-Edge-Holographic", and they both have a value of "Microsoft Edge HTML Document", nothing with "Protocol" and nothing with a colon or otherwise looking like a protocol. Am I missing something?
    – NewSites
    Commented Oct 8, 2023 at 19:10
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    I just tested it with Excel 2013 and Excel 365 and it worked in both. I entered the text I wanted into a cell then went to Insert -> Link and the dialog that opens I entered microsoft-edge:google.com into the address field. Does your link show microsoft-edge when hovering over it?
    – User025
    Commented Oct 9, 2023 at 10:58
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    On my Windows 10 install it shows the microsoft-edge protocol in the settings. But I remember some article about how Microsoft wanted to prevent people to mess with it, so they might have hidden that one protocol from the settings app. If you are really curious about it you could check out the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT hive in regedit. this is where all the protocols are stored internally
    – User025
    Commented Oct 12, 2023 at 16:45

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