Registry - How to register Internet Explorer as a URI scheme and call from chrome?

In order to launch Internet Explorer from chrome in format ie:https://example.com, I have added the following registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ie]
"URL Protocol"="\"\""
@="\"URL:IE Protocol\""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ie\shell]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ie\shell\open]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ie\shell\open\command]
@="cmd /K set url=\"%1\" & call set url=%%url:ie:=%% & call start iexplore %%url%%"

However, it works okay first time launching IE, but failed on the second time due to the double quotes in url(might be a bug for IE).

I tried the following two ways to remove double quotes, but neither worked:

1. Remove ": call set url=%%url:\"=%%. This will cause the command to stop at \" and IE will not appear.

2. Strip the first and last character: call set url=%%url:~1,-1%%. Just doesn't change url at all.

So how can I remove the double quotes in a cmd script in registry? Or is there another workaround to launch IE in chrome(with minimum effort) ?

Solution 1:

It looks like something is going wrong when Internet Explorer detects multiple instances and presumably tries to do something special in that case. There are command-line options to control "merging" behavior, specifically -nosessionmerging and -noframemerging. When I supply those, I can successfully launch additional Internet Explorer windows.

Also, if you'd like the command prompt to go away after the launch, you can use the /c switch instead of /k. Applying these changes and cleaning up extra quotes from other values gives us this updated Registry file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ie]
"URL Protocol"=""
@="URL:IE Protocol"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ie\shell]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ie\shell\open]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\ie\shell\open\command]
@="cmd /c set url=\"%1\" & call set url=%%url:ie:=%% & call start iexplore -nosessionmerging -noframemerging %%url%%"