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batch-filewindows-7registryuri

Registering Custom URI Scheme not working on Windows 7 when url has hashtag and question mark

So I'm having to register a custom uri, cnx://, to have IE launch Chrome.

I've tested my registry entry on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Everything works fine, except on Win7 when there's a URL with a hashtag and a question mark:

cnx:// www.url.com/something/#place/page.php?foo=bar

For whatever reason, that then gets mangled to

cnx:// www.url.com/something/?foo=bar#place/page.php

I have tested this by changing the important registry entry from 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CNX\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\Chrome.exe\" %1"

to just

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CNX\shell\open\command]
@="cmd /k echo %1"

which explicitly shows the mangling in a command prompt.

Only happens on Windows 7. Works without issues on Win8 and Win10. And other URL conventions work just fine on windows7, just not when it has a # and ?

Then, it gets mangled.

And of course, doing http://www.url.com/something/#place/page.php?foo=bar works just fine. It only trips up using this custom uri functionality.

Can anyone maybe offer a workaround?

I tried like crazy encoding #place with %23place but then I lost my mind trying to do the string replacement back to the original #place

Solution 
  • @ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL

:: This part merely for demonstration - begin
CALL :sub "cnx:// www.url.com/something/#place/page.php?foo=bar"
CALL :sub "cnx:// www.url.com/something/?foo=bar#place/page.php"
GOTO :eof
:: This part merely for demonstration - end

:sub
FOR /f "tokens=1-3delims=?#" %%a IN (%1) DO (
 SET "parta=%%a"
 SET "partb=%%b"
 SET "partc=%%c"
)

SET "combo=%parta%#%partb%?%partc%"

IF %* neq "%combo%" SET "combo=%parta%#%partc%?%partb%"

ECHO "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\Chrome.exe %combo%"

GOTO :EOF

    ISTM %1 is supplied differently in Win7, so the trick is to tokenise on ? and #, then reassemble to tokens appropriately.

    The key should be

    @="thisbatch "%1""

    (I believe - no expert here. Point being that %1 should be "quoted"

    [response to comments - on-the-fly, untested; probably requires some escapes...]

    @="cmd /c cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application&FOR /f "tokens=1-3delims=?#" %%a IN ("%1") DO (if "%%a#%%b?%%c"=="%1" (chrome.exe %1) else (chrome.exe %%a#%%c?%%b) )"