Getting default browser’s path

Following registry keys hold default browser’s application path

1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command

2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\http\shell\open\command

As expected there is no consistency here. We tested following browsers

1. Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702
2. Mozilla Firefox 3.0.7
3. Google Chrome 1.0.154.53
4. Opera 9.63
5. Apple Safari 3.2.1 (525.27.1)

First options works for all browsers except Safari. Second option is not very much recommended. Following code snippet extracts browser path from open command.

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using Microsoft.Win32;

RegistryKey regKey = Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey(@"\http\shell\open\command");
string[] valnames = regKey.GetValueNames();
string val0 = (string)regKey.GetValue(valnames[0]);
Regex regex = new Regex("[\\w\\W\\d]*.exe\"",RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
Match match = regex.Match(val0);
MessageBox.Show(match.Value);