Make Google Chrome your default browser in Vista

If you (like me) have tried clicking ‘Make Google Chrome my default browser’ in options > basic with no result, you’re probably as frustrated as I was.

If you’re running Vista, it’s simply a privileges issue, you need to –

  • Close Chrome
  • Right click the Chrome shortcut and select ‘Run as Administrator’
  • Accept the warning about running as administrator
  • Go to options > basic (as before)
  • Press the ‘Make Google Chrome my default browser’ button

This time it should work 🙂

You can now close the browser as administrator and launch it again with your normal user credentials.

On a side note, if you are having trouble making Skype aware of Opera as your default browser, this may help.

add to del.icio.us :: Bookmark Post in Technorati :: Add to Blinkslist :: add to furl :: Digg it :: add to ma.gnolia :: Stumble It! :: add to simpy :: seed the vine :: :: :: TailRank :: post to facebook :: Bookmark on Google :: Add to Netscape :: Share on Yahoo :: Add this to Live

Not the only one with Vista issues

It seems I’m not the only one with Vista issues

Have we really waited 5 years for this?

Why does extracting a zip in vista take forever?

I think I’m going to have add a post category for ‘vista annoyances’!

Why when I extract a zip file with the in-built windows compression utility, does it take a ridiculously long time to complete! I’m fed up with this now, I’m installing 7Zip.

More vista annoyances

Well, I’ve been using vista now for long enough to have experienced a few of it’s annoyances –

  • Why when I leaved my wired connection in the office and then try to connect to my wireless connection at home later do I have to restart the machine in order for it to pick up the access point? Turning the wireless off then on again doesn’t help, putting the laptop in and out of sleep doesn’t help either. This was not an issue in XP.
  • Why when my network connection (wired or wireless) has a slight blip (which it seems to do regularly) does vista insist on popping up a dial-up networking box (usually at the bottom of the window stack) asking me to connect via my phone over bluetooth? There doesn’t seem to be anyway of disabling that dial-up connection so that this doesn’t happen, I don’t want to delete it as I do use it from time to time! Again, not an issue in XP.

So, both network related. On a brighter note, I’m really pleased with the way vista seems to connect to and authenticate to, remote machines via UNC paths. On XP this was a real pain, you’d type in a path, wait a number of minutes for an authentication dialog, enter your credentials then wait a further extended length of time. This now seems almost instant on vista which is really nice.

UPDATE: I think I may have fixed the second one, while in ‘Network and Internet > Network Connections’ I right clicked the dial-up connection (looking for a disable option) and saw an option for ‘Cancel as default connection’ option, let’s hope that fixes it!

UPDATE: It didn’t 😦

So, what’s annoying you with vista?

Visual Studio 2005 + Vista = Annoying

I’ve recently upgraded to vista on my laptop at work and am getting increasingly annoyed by one ‘broken’ aspect. Why can I no longer drag files from an explorer window into a ‘Solution Explorer’ in VS?

I’m assuming it’s something to do with them running as slightly different users as I have to run VS ‘as administrator’, well that’s what MS advises anyway.

I do hope this is fixed soon!