PC:
Windows XP Pro SP2 (all Windows Update/Patches applied)
IE6 SP1 (all update/patches applied)
*Also upgraded to IE7 beta 3 and tried again. Didn't work, so rolled the PC
back to IE6.


Whenever the user clicks on an email address or "mail to" link on a web
page, they get the following error..

"Could not perform the operation because the default mail client is not
properly installed."

I checked IE options Programs tab and confirmed that Outlook Express is
listed under Email and Newsgroups. When i changed it to Outlook and clicked
on the same links, it opened a new Outlook message no problem. When i
changed it back to Outlook Express and tried again, same problem. I did the
same thing again, only this time i rebooted in between changing the clients.
No go..

In Outlook Express under Tools - Options, i confirmed that OE was listed as
the default mail client. I tried making it NOT the default mail handler,
then reboot, then made it the default again. Same issue.

I checked the registry and confirmed that "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\mailto" exists.

I checked all the mailto links i tested and none of them had more than 456
characters as per this MS article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/182985/en-us.

I know that i can work around the issue by doing a "view source" and then
copying and pasting the address into a new email, but that's not what i'm
looking for since the user would have to do this every time they clicked on
a mail link. It "should" work!

Any help is appreciated.