“This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer” in Outlook

Problem

You receive the following error when opening a link/hyper-link in outlook 2010/ 2007
“This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer.”

Cause

The default browser has been changed from IE to another application. and corrupt some registry entries.

Solution

  1. Close outlook and any web browsers you may have open.
  2. Open an elevated command prompt window
    1. Click Start and type “CMD”
    2. Right click the “Cmd.exe” icon
    3. Click “Run as administrator”
    4. In the dialogue box that appears click “Yes”.
  3. Type the following commands line by line into the command prompt window:
    REG ADD HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.htm /ve /d htmlfile /f
    REG ADD HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.html /ve /d htmlfile /f
    REG ADD HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.shtml /ve /d htmlfile /f
    REG ADD HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.xht /ve /d htmlfile /f
    REG ADD HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.xhtml /ve /d htmlfile /f
  4. Open Outlook and try again.

99 comments

  1. Thanks so much. No other solution out there was working but this took care of it. I really appreciate the help.

  2. After days, if not weeks of desperation, this fix WORKED for me OK in a matter of seconds!!! (I used “Copy and Paste”. Recommended.) Thank you

    1. Unfortunately we have been unable to test this. If you do however decide to give it ago we would love to hear how you got on.
      Regards
      David H

      1. Hi David, I did try this out after taking a copy of the registry first. I typed in the commands at an elevated level and after making IE the default browser the error message no longer appears. Regards, Guy

  3. Wow! Thank you so much! I had tried several other fixes including one from Microsoft and nothing worked. I was a bit afraid to try this as I am not terribly computer literate. It worked wonderfully! You are my hero of the day! 😡

  4. Thanks for this post. I followed the instructions and now Outlook works again as it had before,
    thanks a million.

  5. David Henderson !

    D/Henderson, I’m noisy user of PC and I tried your solution and it works perfectly with 1 minute. Once again thanks for your valuable and practical advice. Allah Bless u and your love 1.

  6. I tried all other solutions listed online and this is the only one that worked. Did runas command to run with domain admin account then copied and pasted commands. Worked like a charm!

  7. now I have been struggling to fis this error for over a week and then finally came across your solution…worked like a charm..Thank you

  8. Thank you so much for the straight forward easy to follow fix, you “ROCK” as usual Microsoft website was a frustrating trail that led nowhere

  9. Your resolution surpasses all the other resolutions. The major question is what caused this to go from working to not working. I guess it’s one of the updates I took in the last week (IE 10 service pack, etc)

  10. Just perfect. I could not restore the access after removing the chrome (just hate the damn Adobe install it by default) using all different ways listed on the MS supporting site. But the trick listed here just worked like a charm. Thank you so much.

  11. WOW– it worked; thank you so much. Was also easier than all the other fixes which did NOT work. Copy Paste worked. Nice.

  12. I had tried so many sites looking for advice (and tried all of them) but none worked. This worked immediately. Thank you!!

  13. when i open any application or any files that cannot be open.when i click file or application it say,”This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer.”
    how to solve this problem.please help me.i am using windows 8

  14. Great fix! You don’t need to open the cmd window with elevated rights, in fact it should be run as the current user as the registry entries you are modifying are in HKCU.

  15. Yes!! I fixed it with your help 🙂 I have been having this problem for more than a year nothing else worked !! Thank you Thank you Thank you 🙂

  16. You must be a smart cookie. Nobody in the whole world could help sufficiently. So THANKS !!!!!!!!!
    So what to do? So, select and copy the 4 Reg-Lines. Close all taps. From START select in search COMMAND PROMPT and past the 4 Reg-lines in one go into it. And Bob is yr Uncle! Absolute a marvellous solution. THANKS AGAIN!!!! KEES.

  17. Wow! I’m really lucky I came across this page quite early in my attempts to get that fixed. It works perfectly well. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!

  18. Ran into this issue on a clients laptop running Windows 10 with Outlook 2007.
    Making hyper links open by default in Chrome messed up registry.
    Followed all of MS technet articles:
    Tried following other registry fix’s but because Chrome wiped out settings was unable to.

    This little trick still works as of 11-2-16

    Awesome thank you for putting this out!

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