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Make Portable Thunderbird You Default Mail Client

I constantly recommend portable apps to clients as they are the easiest to backup compared to outlook and other programs.

The only problem is that they struggle to work as a default mail client as they are portable. Here is a hack which solves this problem and makes everything work nice and smoothly.

Copy and paste the code below into a .reg file, then edit the path to match your TBP installation.

Works on Win XP SP3, Vista, Windows 7

=== start .reg code ===

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Changes to make TB Portable the default e-mail client
; Make your TB Portable the default mail client: Tools > Options. Don’t skip this step.
; Edit YOUR ThunderbirdPortable.exe path below. MINE is E:\\Program Files\\ThunderbirdPortable\\ThunderbirdPortable.exe
; Run this patch and you are done.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Mozilla Thunderbird\shell\open\command]
@="\"E:\\Program Files\\ThunderbirdPortable\\ThunderbirdPortable.exe\" -mail"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Mozilla Thunderbird\shell\properties]
@="Thunderbird &Options"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Mozilla Thunderbird\shell\properties\command]
@="\"E:\\Program Files\\ThunderbirdPortable\\ThunderbirdPortable.exe\" -options"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\mailto\DefaultIcon]
@="E:\\Program Files\\ThunderbirdPortable\\App\\thunderbird\\thunderbird.exe,0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\mailto\shell\open\command]
@="\"E:\\Program Files\\ThunderbirdPortable\\ThunderbirdPortable.exe\" \"%1\""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail]
@="Mozilla Thunderbird"

; This fixes MAPI

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{29F458BE-8866-11D5-A3DD-00B0D0F3BAA7}\LocalServer32]
@="E:\\Program Files\\ThunderbirdPortable\\ThunderbirdPortable.exe /MAPIStartUp"

=== end .reg code ===