Another annoyance gone now: with Firefox installed and set as the default browser, clicking on links in applications would result in an annoying error message from Vista despite Firefox opening the link correctly. Same happens if you type a URL in an Explorer window. This popup only happens if Firefox was not already running. The fix is to remove or rename the registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxURL\shell\open\ddeexec

This key will reappear when Firefox is updated, so you may want to prepare a .reg file like:

---

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\FirefoxURL\shell\open\ddeexec]

---

(Remember to leave an empty line at the end)

The Firefox people are aware of the problem, so hopefully this hack will soon be unnecessary.

In other news, I finished the Supreme Commander campaign yesterday. In a weird parallel, it left me with a similar feeling as the book I am reading (Blue Mars): fascinating but boring. The main problem in SupCom’s campaign is the lack of variety; every mission feels the same. The main problem in Blue mars is that there is very little story and an awful lot of description; Red Mars was already heavy on this, Green Mars went even further, and Blue Mars goes too far in my opinion.