Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

I've seen a few people ask if it is possible to change what browser is launched and used when running web apps in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer (for example: to use FireFox instead of IE).  The good news is that there is an easy way to configure this.  To-do this:

1) Right click on a .aspx page in your solution explorer

2) Select the "browse with" context menu option

3) In the dialog you can select or add a browser.  If you want Firefox in the list, click "add" and point to the firefox.exe filename

4) Click the "Set as Default" button to make this the default browser when you run any page on the site.

Note that there is also an optional drop-down at the bottom of the dialog that lets you select the default browser window size when loading.  You can choose 800x600 or 1024x768 if you want to visualize what the site will look like for people using those screen resolutions.  This works for both IE and FireFox (and probably other browsers too -- those just happened to be the two I checked).

Hope this helps,

Scott

Published Friday, November 18, 2005 10:06 PM by ScottGu

Comments

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Saturday, November 19, 2005 2:25 AM by Tim Haines
Thanks Scott, That's great news. I really like the fact you can choose the size. I've only recently discovered that I can now debug in firefox :- http://ims.co.nz/blog/archive/2005/11/08/1198.aspx

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Friday, December 09, 2005 9:31 AM by Dave
The resolution setting doesn't seem to work?

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Sunday, December 11, 2005 1:37 PM by scottgu
Hi Dave,

I just tried it out and it seems to work well for me. One thing I have discovered is that if you already have a browser window open, you need to close it before re-launching it with the new resolution (otherwise the page will just load in the current browser with the current resolution).

Hope this helps,

Scott

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Tuesday, June 06, 2006 4:27 AM by Valerio
Very very thanks. I was going crazy with regedit to find out where to change browser.!

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Sunday, June 18, 2006 3:00 PM by anju
Thanks a lot, searching from a long time.Very useful.

# ASP.NET 2.0 Tips, Tricks, Recipes and Gotchas

Tuesday, August 01, 2006 11:55 AM by ScottGu's Blog

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# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Monday, August 21, 2006 11:11 PM by Hari Krishnan
Thanks very much i have been searching for this for a long time.....

# Loading MIME contents into the WebBrowser control

Tuesday, August 22, 2006 7:00 AM by smoothcoder
Hi, there. I might be off-topic, but I'm desperately seeking for help; here is my problem: I want to load a MIME formatted string into the WebBrowser control (.NET 2.0) WITHOUT saving those contents into an MHT file first. How can I do it? Does anybody have any ideea? Thanks for your attention.

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Monday, August 28, 2006 10:03 AM by fLÁVIOoLIVEIRA
Perfect, it works, and no more is needed

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Wednesday, September 27, 2006 11:26 AM by Karim
I try to change the default browser. But in VS when i do a right-click on aspx page, the "browse with" context menu option is disabled

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Saturday, October 21, 2006 2:12 AM by Paul
Thanks for that! Saved me some time.

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Wednesday, November 08, 2006 1:56 AM by Ed Robinson
I don't have that option... here's the situation. I had FF installed as the default browser. I uninstalled it. The only option I have with right click on aspx with solution explorer is `view in browser'. When this is selected, it complains that FF is not available. What now?

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Wednesday, November 08, 2006 2:07 AM by Ed Robinson
Ok - found the solution. Instead of using the right click, click File - Browse with... This will allow you to select for yourself.

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Saturday, November 11, 2006 8:06 AM by emre
Wow that was a pain in the ass! Thanks a lot Scott!

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Saturday, January 06, 2007 4:46 PM by Lee

Muchos Thank-You's. Just what I was looking for.

# re: Changing the default browser used in VS 2005 and Visual Web Developer

Monday, January 22, 2007 5:06 PM by Kenneth

Thanks, been googling for ages for this one. Ca'nt believe how easy it really was.

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