Force Links in "Favorites" folder pane IE6 to open in new window

Hi Experts

I've been trying to clean up all the redundant *.url files in my Favorites folder by clicking on each in turn in the Favorites pane in Internet Explorer to check which are live and which I either need to update/modify or delete.  In so doing, I've realised something slightly annoying that I thought I could fix with a quick registry tweak.  It doesn't work.

I know the command line options to launch iexplore.exe in a new window using -new, with the -nohome switch, etc, and I thought that if I modified the Default value of:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut\shell\open\command
by adding the -new switch, that all my Internet Shortcuts would always open in a new window.

The problem is that the command line to open the *.URL file type (Internet Shortcut) is:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\InternetShortcut\shell\open\command
@="rundll32.exe shdocvw.dll,OpenURL %l"

and not iexplore.exe as I assumed it would be.  In fact it's been a while since I looked at that key, and I had forgotten how the command is run through the DLL.

I don't know if shdocvw.dll has any other internal functions that could be called instead, or whether any other parameters could be added to it.

OK, so I wondered if I could modify the command used to open an *.htm/html file (URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol and URL:HyperText Transfer Protocol with Privacy) always in a new IE window.  Here's the registry's "Open" action:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe\" -nohome"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\ddeexec]
@="\"%1\",,-1,0,,,,"
"NoActivateHandler"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\ddeexec\Application]
@="IExplore"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http\shell\open\ddeexec\Topic]
@="WWW_OpenURL"

I changed the command from:
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -nohome
to
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -new -nohome
with strange results.

Next time I opened IE, it showed me the prompt about IE not being my default browser, and when I checked the box then closed IE after it loaded normally, it had removed the -new switch from the registry.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can force a link to always open in a new IE when I click on a shortcut in my Favorites pane of IE?

Before you say it, yes I know about Firefox's tabs, I use Firefox about 50% of the time anyway.  I haven't yet checked out Opera, but will do, and like all MS programs IE7 is still too half-baked for me to want to install it :-)

In case you are wondering why this is bugging me, it's not just  the fact that I don't like not being able to change an apparently simple setting, but the fact that having the target page open as a new window while testing each url's validity makes it a whole lot quicker to just close that window and still have my "index" page sitting with the favorites pane ready for the next link check and not have it reloading pages again.

I should probably just be using some utility that runs through each of my Favorites and tests to ensure they are still live.  I've no doubt there's a plethora of freeware utilities and VB Scripts to do this in one pass, but they most likely won't allow you to rename and shuffle the "live" ones into new appropriately named folders while working.

Any suggestions welcome.
Thanks - Bill