How to /actually/ open a web page from win32 code?

[Applewood]

I'm currently calling this on a button click in my win32 c++ app:

ShellExecute(NULL,"open",Entry.ShopURL,NULL,NULL,SW_SHOWNORMAL);

Just like it says in various MS and other websites.

My problem is that I would like that piece of code to actually open the default browser at the given location, as opposed to nothing happening, getting a 5 return from the call and a debug spew of "First-chance exception at 0x7c812afb in test.exe: 0x80040155: Interface not registered."

*sigh* Anyone know more than Microsoft about windows programming?

Thanks! (I'm testing on XP btw)

[BantamCityGames]

Nope, mine looks just like yours...

ShellExecute(NULL, "open", "http://www.invadazoid.com", NULL, NULL, SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED);

This seems to work at least for IE and Firefox for me.

[Applewood]

Tiresome!

When I get an ACCESS_DENIED from this call, I fallback to the below which actually works. (Assuming you actually have iexplore)

ShellExecute(NULL,"open","iexplore",Entry.ShopURL,NULL,SW_SHOWNORMAL);

[Adrian Lopez]

Both calls work fine on my system, but here's something you should try, just in case:


Because ShellExecute can delegate execution to Shell extensions (data sources, context menu handlers, verb implementations) that are activated using Component Object Model (COM), COM should be initialized before ShellExecute is called. Some Shell extensions require the COM single-threaded apartment (STA) type. In that case, COM should be initialized as shown here:

CoInitializeEx(NULL, COINIT_APARTMENTTHREADED | COINIT_DISABLE_OLE1DDE)

There are certainly instances where ShellExecute does not use one of these types of Shell extension and those instances would not require COM to be initialized at all. Nonetheless, it is good practice to always initalize COM before using this function.

I don't know if that would make any difference in your case (it works fine for me without it), but at least it's something to try.

[BantamCityGames]

Could the access denied be because the user has limited account privileges?

[Applewood]

Tried that thanks Adrian, didn't help.

Bruno, I thought this might be it as well, but I'm on XP with a single full-access account. It's presumably gonna fail even harder for me on Vista, lol

[Bad Sector]

Well, assuming Windows NT or greater, this might work


WinExec("cmd.exe /c start http://maps.google.com/", SW_HIDE);

(cmd.exe is only found in Windows NT and later... :-P)

[Adrian Lopez]

Could it be a problem with shell32.dll not being properly registered (http://www.pcworld.com/article/126116/windows_tips_fix_windows_glitches_by_reregistering _your_dlls.html)? ShellExecute resides in shell32.dll, so try the following command:

regsvr32 /i shell32.dll

[Applewood]

Tried that as well :(

It must just be something about my pc, i'll try it on others when I get back to work. Bizarre.

[cliffski]

I do this, if it helps?

void LaunchWebPage(char* url)
{
//launches the default browser and sends it to given URL

SHELLEXECUTEINFO sh;
memset(&sh, 0L, sizeof(SHELLEXECUTEINFO));

sh.cbSize = sizeof(SHELLEXECUTEINFO);
sh.lpVerb = "open";
sh.lpFile = url;
sh.nShow = SW_NORMAL;

if(!ShellExecuteEx(&sh))
{
DWORD dw = GetLastError();

char errorbuffer[256];

FormatMessage(
FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM,NULL,
dw,0,
(LPTSTR)errorbuffer,0,NULL);

GetDebug()->DebugOut(errorbuffer);
}
}

[Applewood]

Thanks Cliff, I'll give that a bash shortly.

Similar result. I actually got an error box from Firefox which at least signifies that Firefox tried to work.

[ManuTOO]

I use this :
ShellExecute(MainWindow, "open", "http://www.managames.com", NULL, NULL, Show);
MainWindow is the HWND to my program window.

If you did a CoInitialize() before, it won't work, though.
So in this case, I use :
ShellExecute(NULL, "open", "Data\\OpenURL.exe", "http://www.managames.com", NULL, SW_HIDE);
OpenURL.exe is just a lil program that does :
ShellExecute(MainWindow, "open", pCommand, NULL, NULL, Show);

[Applewood]

I think that sounds like the answer, thanks. I do the CoInitialise thing as part of starting up XAudio2.

Shame it requires such a hack to work though. What a shower, lol

[cliffski]

You can't be too hard on microsoft. They have a backwards compatibility nightmare going back to windows 3.11 and before.
Imagine if you were forced to use the code you wrote fifteen years ago, for your latest project.
I bet everyone in microsoft would give their right arm for the chance to scrub windows and start again, but it can never happen.

[Applewood]

See windows 8 :)

[Bad Sector]

Windows 8 is still the old Win32 API with yet another layer piled on top. I tried the 64bit public beta and i could even run a sample of OpenWatcom (which i installed because the bundled Visual Studio Express somehow couldn't create C/C++ projects) that was written for Win16 :-P

[Applewood]

Oh well. Maybe by windows 9 we'll all be running iOS anyway...