Troubleshoot the Error "Outlook is Not Recognized as the Default Email Client"

MS Outlook synchronizes user’s entire emails from web to its desktop-based application, allows one to send/receive emails, manage contacts, add notes, etc. Apart from individuals, many organizations are also using Outlook as their email client. With time, Outlook has gained immense popularity due to its diverse features and functionalities. Still, you may face certain issues while using Outlook. The most common issue, however, reported by a majority of Outlook users is that they face pop-ups that states errors like “Outlook is not recognized as the default email client”, typically as an alert depicted in the following screenshot:

Whenever a user attempts to send an email using the File or ‘Send by’ email command, Outlook throws such error messages. Moreover, the reason for Outlook is not recognized as the default email client can have other factors like bit configuration and improper installation of Office Suite of products.

We have listed some of the most common reasons behind getting the “Outlook not recognized as the default email client” error.

Reasons for the Error

• There might be chances that you are accessing Outlook 64-bit application, and 32-bit applications are unable to read 64-bit configuration software.
• Internet Explorer is configured to use Windows Live Mail.

One direct method to fix this issue is that you can check and assign Outlook as the default email client via the Control Panel settings.

Manual method to set Outlook as the default client

To verify and assign Outlook as your default email client, following these simple steps:

1. Go to Start and navigate through Control Panel > Default Programs.
2. In the Default Programs window, click on the Set your default programs link
3. Select the Default apps tab and under Email option, click on the email client assigned as the default email client application.
4. From the drop-down menu, select Microsoft Outlook.
5. Microsoft Outlook is set as the default email client for your current Windows OS.

In case, you see Outlook as the default email client assigned already, and you are still getting errors like “Either there is no default mail client or the current mail client cannot fulfil the messaging request”; then either you are using a different bit version of Outlook or you have installed the application after installing MS Office Suite.

Scenario -1: Working on Outlook 64-bit when other application are of 32-bit configuration

Check the bit configuration of your current Outlook application, and try reinstalling the correct version as per the configuration of other programs installed on your machine. Typically, Outlook with 64-bit configuration is recommended when you are managing large data files (around 2GB or more) for applications such as MS Excel and MS Access. However, you can still manage to work on 64-bit Outlook if other programs are of 32-bit configuration simply by making certain changes to the system’s Registry settings.

Scenario -2: Outlook is installed with Microsoft Office

In case you have installed Outlook with the MS Office Suite, you can repair the Office installation manually through the Control Panel.

1. Go to Start and navigate through Control Panel > Programs and Features.
2. Locate and select your Office or Outlook installation.
3. Click on the Change button located at the top of the list.
4. Select Repair and click on the Continue button. Wait until the repair gets completed. Once you are done repairing your Office installation, reboot your system and try accessing Outlook again.

Scenario -3: User working with Home and Business 2010 C2R suite

This is the case where issues arises due to Microsoft Outlook 2010 C2R suite which is installed on the virtual hard drive making the application not visible to the other applications. This is the root cause of the issue.

Here, users can uninstall this suite and then download and install the MSI to get the Microsoft Outlook application.

However one can change Windows Registry settings if he does not want to uninstall the C2R suite for Microsoft Outlook 2010. The steps are as below.

1. Type regedit.exe in the search box and select the application to open it.
2. On the Registry Editor page, follow the path- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail
3. Select and right-click the Mail section, then click on Export.
4. Provide a saving location for this registry file and click Save. A backup will be saved.
5. Now, go again to the Mail location, right-click on it and follow New > Key.
6. Provide the key name as Outlook64Bridge.
7. Now, use the same method and create key namely DLLPath under Outlook64Bridge and then a new key with name DLLPathEx under DLLPath.
8. Next, you need to provide the path location of MAPI32.dll file on the system to the above created DLLPath keys. The location would be – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail\Outlook64Bridge\DLLPathEx And the path to be assigned to the keys is – (example) “C:\WINDOWS\x86_microsoft-windows- \xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx mapi32.dll”
9. Finally, make Outlook64Bridege as the default Mail client with the path - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Mail"Outlook64Bridge"

Till now, it’s almost certain that you have fixed the “Outlook is not recognized as the default email client” error. But what if your MS Outlook application gets completely inaccessible and you have tried & exhausted almost every measure to gain back the access. Outlook inaccessibility is mostly associated with corruption or damage of Outlook’s PST files.

As we know PST stores the entire mailbox data associated with your Outlook mail profile. Any corruption or damage to PST will lead to complete inaccessibility of your Outlook data. Even manual measures are not sufficient to deal with severe corruption of PST files. In such circumstances, users are left with an alternative in form of third-party software. However, there are only a few trusted repair tools that are efficient to deal with any level of corruption residing in PST files.

We have one such tool that provides you a one stop solution for all your recovery concerns regarding PST files. Kernel for Outlook PST Repair is designed with robust algorithms and a powerful mechanism to deal with corruption issues in PST files. With this tool you can even recover files without any size restrictions. Moreover, the trial version allows users to recover and save first 25 items free of cost. Here is the snapshot of the main interface of the software.

Conclusion

A quick way to deal with “Outlook is not recognized as the default email client” error is to assign Outlook as your default email client. In case you are still getting troubled with the same error messages, try reinstalling MS Office, or try repairing the Office installation via the Control Panel.