What connection does MS Office have to Netscape Navigator?

Question

While poking around in the registry, I noticed a Netscape Navigator key at the following:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Netscape\Netscape Navigator

That key contained two more keys "Suffixes" and "Viewers"; both referenced application/ppt, /msword, /msexcel, etc.

I've never installed or even used Netscape Navigator -- why are these there?

Solution 1

I think you have discovered some forgotten historical artifact of Microsoft Office.

I believe that these registry keys belonged to Microsoft Office FrontPage, a discontinued WYSIWYG HTML editor and website administration tool from Microsoft, which used Netscape software.

FrontPage was replaced in 2006 by Microsoft Expression Web and SharePoint Designer, later also discontinued, but apparently Microsoft Office continues to faithfully install it to this very day. I can testify that these keys are still present in Office 2019. They are to be found in all manual uninstall instructions for Office.

If this worries you, feel free to signal it as a bug via the Windows Feedback Hub.

Note:

I have found more traces of Netscape, this time in ASP.NET. I found on my computer the files C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\Browsers\netscape.browser and C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\Browsers\netscape.browser. A ".browser" file is used by ASP.NET to detect the installed browser type and define its capabilities for displaying Web page content. This means that ASP.NET, to this day, is still checking if the Netscape browser is being used (!).

Solution 2

This tells Netscape, if it were installed, that Office files should be opened with Office, so it avoids a dialog when you download an Office file.

The only application that would ever read key this would be Netscape, but Office installs it regardless of whether Netscape is installed, because if you install Office first, then Netscape second, the registration would be missing and the user would have to run the "Repair" option of the office install.

Comments

[Sir_Josh]

Very strange that they keep registering these presumably unused keys. If it ain't broke and all that I guess. I was mostly just confused and could find very little information about them (which is odd considering it's been haunting systems for about 13 years).

[AggrostheWroth]

Most of these older "why are these here" keys are left in the software not because they are forgotten, but because there is a desire for backwards compatibility. While I doubt there are many people using netscape with office, you never know.

[Euro Micelli]

Also, I don’t know anything about these specific keys; but it is shocking the amount of garbage files and keys that Windows and Office have to carry around, because some third-party critical Line-Of-Business software that has not been updated in 15 years from a company that went out-of-business 8 years ago, will crash if the garbage key is missing.

[gparyani]

@EuroMicelli There is precedent for gradually removing these old historical artifacts, though. Microsoft removed legacy code for supporting Outlook Express from the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, which had been kept in Windows Vista, 7, 8, and earlier Windows 10 builds for compatibility with legacy software.

[StarWeaver]

From the content in the OP I would actually guess that this is an artefact from setting up inline viewers (applets?) for word, excel, and powerpoint for that browser, not related to frontpage. Wouldn't be surprised if it attempted this for other browsers. Probably the idea is, just make registry keys so that it works if they install the browser after office too.

[J...]

Someone is using this for spacebar heating...

[Harper - Reinstate Ukraine]

Also, for quite some years, browsers contemporary to Netscape also used Netscape settings.

[Eilon]

Small clarification about ASP.NET: The netscape.browser isn't used to detect if Netscape Navigator is installer, but rather if a web site built with ASP.NET is serving content to a Netscape Navigator browser client. (ASP.NET is a web platform.)