How to open a web page from my application?
C#.NetWpfC# Problem Overview
I want to make my WPF application open the default browser and go to a certain web page. How do I do that?
C# Solutions
Solution 1 - C#
For desktop versions of .NET:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("http://www.webpage.com");
For .NET Core, the default for ProcessStartInfo.UseShellExecute
has changed from true
to false
, and so you have to explicitly set it to true
for this to work:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo
{
FileName = "http://www.webpage.com",
UseShellExecute = true
});
To further complicate matters, this property cannot be set to true
for UWP apps (so none of these solutions are usable for UWP).
Solution 2 - C#
Accepted answer no longer works on .NET Core 3. To make it work, use the following method:
var psi = new ProcessStartInfo
{
FileName = url,
UseShellExecute = true
};
Process.Start (psi);
Solution 3 - C#
I've been using this line to launch the default browser:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("http://www.google.com");
Solution 4 - C#
While a good answer has been given (using Process.Start
), it is safer to encapsulate it in a function that checks that the passed string is indeed a URI, to avoid accidentally starting random processes on the machine.
public static bool IsValidUri(string uri)
{
if (!Uri.IsWellFormedUriString(uri, UriKind.Absolute))
return false;
Uri tmp;
if (!Uri.TryCreate(uri, UriKind.Absolute, out tmp))
return false;
return tmp.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttp || tmp.Scheme == Uri.UriSchemeHttps;
}
public static bool OpenUri(string uri)
{
if (!IsValidUri(uri))
return false;
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(uri);
return true;
}
Solution 5 - C#
You cannot launch a web page from an elevated application. This will raise a 0x800004005 exception, probably because explorer.exe and the browser are running non-elevated.
To launch a web page from an elevated application in a non-elevated web browser, use the code made by Mike Feng. I tried to pass the URL to lpApplicationName but that didn't work. Also not when I use CreateProcessWithTokenW with lpApplicationName = "explorer.exe" (or iexplore.exe) and lpCommandLine = url.
The following workaround does work: Create a small EXE-project that has one task: Process.Start(url), use CreateProcessWithTokenW to run this .EXE. On my Windows 8 RC this works fine and opens the web page in Google Chrome.
Solution 6 - C#
Here is my complete code how to open.
there are 2 options:
-
open using default browser (behavior is like opened inside the browser window)
-
open through default command options (behavior is like you use "RUN.EXE" command)
-
open through 'explorer' (behavior is like you wrote url inside your folder window url)
[optional suggestion] 4. use iexplore process location to open the required url
CODE:
internal static bool TryOpenUrl(string p_url)
{
// try use default browser [registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\http\shell\open\command]
try
{
string keyValue = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.GetValue(@"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\http\shell\open\command", "", null) as string;
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(keyValue) == false)
{
string browserPath = keyValue.Replace("%1", p_url);
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(browserPath);
return true;
}
}
catch { }
// try open browser as default command
try
{
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(p_url); //browserPath, argUrl);
return true;
}
catch { }
// try open through 'explorer.exe'
try
{
string browserPath = GetWindowsPath("explorer.exe");
string argUrl = "\"" + p_url + "\"";
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(browserPath, argUrl);
return true;
}
catch { }
// return false, all failed
return false;
}
and the Helper function:
internal static string GetWindowsPath(string p_fileName)
{
string path = null;
string sysdir;
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
{
try
{
if (i == 0)
{
path = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("SystemRoot");
}
else if (i == 1)
{
path = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("windir");
}
else if (i == 2)
{
sysdir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.System);
path = System.IO.Directory.GetParent(sysdir).FullName;
}
if (path != null)
{
path = System.IO.Path.Combine(path, p_fileName);
if (System.IO.File.Exists(path) == true)
{
return path;
}
}
}
catch { }
}
// not found
return null;
}
Hope i helped.
Solution 7 - C#
The old school way ;)
public static void openit(string x) {
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("cmd", "/C start" + " " + x);
}
Use: openit("www.google.com");
Solution 8 - C#
I have the solution for this due to I have a similar problem today.
Supposed you want to open http://google.com from an app running with admin priviliges:
ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("iexplore.exe", "http://www.google.com/");
Process.Start(startInfo);
Solution 9 - C#
string target= "http://www.google.com";
try
{
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(target);
}
catch (System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception noBrowser)
{
if (noBrowser.ErrorCode==-2147467259)
MessageBox.Show(noBrowser.Message);
}
catch (System.Exception other)
{
MessageBox.Show(other.Message);
}