The other morning (following a massive Windows update the night before) I was greeted with an error whenever I clicked on a link in email. Outlook simply said “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.”

I promptly consulted my good friend Google for advice, and found a couple of relevant suggestions. The cause of the problem appeared to be related to the default browser setting in Windows (by the way, I use Firefox as my main browser) being damaged (by the Windows update?). Suggestions ranged from setting the default programs in Windows, to editing the Windows Registry. None of that worked for me though. I suspect that might have had to do with me running

Windows 7 (at the time still the Release Candidate), and the information out there relating to Windows Vista and older operating systems.

What did fix the problem was to simply run Internet Explorer and set it as the default web browser (Tools / Internet options / Programs / Make Default), and then run Firefox and set it as the default web browser (Tools / Options / Advanced / General / Check Now).

Really easy in the end!

Keywords: Outlook, Firefox, error, restrictions