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Desktop Shortcut

l5foye

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I hope I am not about to ask a stupid question. I am on Windows XP and use an Outlook/Hotmail email. I have a desktop shortcut to Hotmail which uses Internet Explorer. Recently I have started to use Firefox. Is there a way to create a desktop shortcut which uses Firefox, instead of IE? The usual method of creating a shortcut takes me to IE.
 
A shortcut points to an address, and that address will be opened using a program suitable for it.

Your issue is that you've not set Firefox as the default browser. If you set FF to default browser, any shortcuts to web addresses you already have will open in the default browser which would then be firefox.

If you open FF, it should ask you if you want it to set itself as the default browser. If it asks, answer yes, and you're sorted. If you previously clicked no to this, click on the Firefox button >Tools > Options > Set Firefox as default browser.
 
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It already is the default browser, that's why the shortcuts are opening in IE.

The OP needs to set FF as the default browser. The shortcuts created will then open in FF.

Yes, I realise that. It was the only screen shot I could find to describe the process of setting the default browser in XP. It should have been obvious that any browser could be selected
 
You should be able to go to Control Panel > Default Programs. Select FireFox as the default browser from there.

It's been a while since I used XP, but right clicking on the task bar and selecting properties then changing the browser from Internet Explorer to Firefox might also do the same job.
 
You probably have a hard IE shortcut.

Right click the shortcut on the desktop and check the target path.
- If the target path is: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://www.hotmail.com
- Then change it to simply have the URL: http://www.hotmail.com

P.S. I have the URL "http://www.hotmail.com" as an example - but it should work.
 
I hope I am not about to ask a stupid question. I am on Windows XP and use an Outlook/Hotmail email. I have a desktop shortcut to Hotmail which uses Internet Explorer. Recently I have started to use Firefox. Is there a way to create a desktop shortcut which uses Firefox, instead of IE? The usual method of creating a shortcut takes me to IE.

Go to your Program Files folder, find Firefox (in mozilla folder maybe?) and then in there find the Firefox.exe and right click it, choose 'create shortcut' and then cut and paste that to your desktop, it may even give you an option to 'send to desktop as a shortcut'.
 

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