[Spivak]

I would assume because MS wants to have end-to-end quality control on links that are built-in to the OS.

This is the kind of edge case that would bother me to no end if I was an OS vendor because any ole program can install itself as a protocol handler. The last thing I want is to have happen is clicking something in the OS opens in a broken browser or doesn’t open in a browser at all. And the only browser I know for sure is there and works the way I want is Edge or IE. The alternative is what Windows used to do is bundle (and still does) is open up its own window in an IE webview.

[WorldMaker]

Seems that way to me too. In this case too it seems to be a hack around Windows 10 still bundles IE11 to this day and there are some situations where users (for whatever wild reason such as wilting old Group Policies that should have been updated half a decade ago) still have IE11 as a default browser, and yet Microsoft knows from a QA perspective these pages no longer work on IE11 at all.

On the one hand, at least this "hack" is implemented as its own protocol handler ("microsoft-edge:") which is how Brave and Firefox can "intercept it" (it's not like they are hacking some "interceptor", they are registering for the protocol just as any other protocol might see multiple registrants). On the other hand it is sad that this protocol was seen as necessary hack to Microsoft to get around Windows 10 backwards compatibility needs and the mistake of bundling IE11 with Windows 10 as a "fully supported browser for the life cycle of Windows 10" rather than an optional enterprise feature with an end date on the box.

[mmis1000]

I though they'd better name the protocol as 'windows-documentations:' or something like that. Then no one will have problems with it at all.