Fixed Microsoft Outlook unable to open any URL link in email problem

If you are using Microsoft Outlook as your email client, and facing the problem of unable to open any URL link in your emails, this could be a workable solution for you.

The symptom: whenever you click on a link in your email, expecting your web browser to open the link, or in the case of a mailto email address link, expecting Outlook to open the New Message window for you to write a new email to the recipient, you will get this pop-up error message instead: "Your organization's policies are preventing us from completing this action for you. For more info, please contact your help desk".  

However, if you are using Outlook in your home computer, or your IT personnel told you that they didn't impose any such restriction on your computer, then the actual problem is possibly due to corrupted Windows registry.

You can try to fix it by resetting related Windows registry entries to their original form.

To do this, use Notepad or any text editor to open a new plain text file, copy and paste the following content into it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SOFTWARE\Classes\htmlfile\shell\open\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe\" -nohome" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SOFTWARE\Classes\htmlfile\shell\opennew\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe\" %1" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.htm] @="htmlfile" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.html] @="htmlfile" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.shtml] @="htmlfile" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\htmlfile\shell\open\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe\" -nohome" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\htmlfile\shell\opennew\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe\" %1" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.htm] @="htmlfile" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.html] @="htmlfile" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.shtml] @="htmlfile" [-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\htmlfile] [-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.htm] [-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.html] [-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.shtml]

Save the above content in plain text as "fix-my-links.reg".

Login as a user with Administrator rights, and double click on this file fix-my-links.reg to fix your Windows registry.

After that, you should be able to open the URL links in your emails in Outlook now.