There seems to be an increasing number of complaints regarding links in Outlook email not working. In other words, you click a link in an email message and nothing happens. Though the cause of the problem may vary, one reason can be tracked to a family of Trojans intent on stealing gaming credentials. For example, Symantec reports that Infostealer.Wowcraft.C modifies the values:
"(Default)" = "%ProgramFiles%\Internet Explorer\INTEXPLORE.com" -nohome"
"(Default)" = "%ProgramFiles%\common~1\INTEXPLORE.pif" %1""
in the registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\htmlfile\shell\open\command
This effectively places the Trojan file (in this case, INTEXPLORE.com) in the role of middleman. You click a link in email, it loads the INTEXPLORE.com file, which then passes the control over to the browser. It's possible that either some antivirus software is removing the Trojan but leaving behind the registry edit, or impacted users are manually deleting the file but leaving behind the registry edit. Either way, the result is the same - basically resulting in a dead end each time you click a link in email.
Fortunately, the fix is simple. First, scan the system with up to date antivirus software to ensure the Trojan really is gone. Then edit the registry and replace the bad value with the default value:
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -nohome
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