SubscribeClicking links in Outlook 2007 generates “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer”
For doing the things that I do and visiting the webpages that I routinely go to, I have recently come to the conclusion that Firefox and IE, for all intents and purposes, really aren’t all that different. At this point in my career (and life), I simply don’t have the time or desire to be devoted to a cause (Firefox) or to a brand (Apple). I simply use my computer as a tool to complete tasks. That’s it. At any rate, since Firefox 3.0 was having some well documented trouble with Flickr on my system, I decided to save the space and abandon it completely in favor of IE7.
After uninstalling Firefox, I noticed that links no longer worked within Outlook 2007. Clicking on any link produced an error which stated, “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.” As with any error, I turned to Google. I was able to find numerous blogs and pages which simply restated Microsoft’s solution of respecifying IE as the default browser. For every time somebody posted that procedure, there were dozens of, “Thanks, that worked.” replies, so I figured that it would work for me as well.
I followed the instructions in Microsoft’s help document Q310049 while logged in as myself (user permissions), but my links still produced the warning. I then tried making the same changes while logged in as administrator, but I still had no luck. Eventually, I solved the problem by making a SWAG: All I had to do was temporarily add my normal account to the administrators group, follow Microsoft’s instructions from Q310049, and then remove myself from administrators.
I’m not sure which registry keys are directly manipulated by the steps outlined in Q310049. If you are indeed required to have administrative privelages to edit them, then it’s scary to think of how many people run as admin 100% of the time. (Judging by the volume of “Thanks, that worked” responses I encountered when reading blogs which rehashed Q310049).