ShellExecute fails for local html or file URLs

Question

Our company is migrating our help systems over to HTML5 format under Flare. We\'ve also added Topic based access to the help systems using Flare CSHID\'s on the URI command

Answer 1

I tried WebDrive's solution and it didn't really work on Windows 10.

"HTTP\Shell\Open\Command" default value is set to Internet Explorer path, regardless of what my default browser setting. However, for Internet Explorer that solution DOES work.

Process to fetch default browser path on Windows 10 is a bit different (How to determine the Windows default browser (at the top of the start menu)) but even then the solution is not guaranteed to work, depending on the browser. E.g. for me it didn't work with Edge.

To get it to work with Edge I had to add "file:///" to the URL -- but that also makes the URL work with ShellExecute(). So, at least on Windows 10, all I needed to do was this:

ShellExecute(NULL,_T("open"),_T("file:///c:/Help/Default.html#cshid=1648"),NULL,NULL,NULL);

UPDATE: The above stopped working months ago. What I eventually did was go through temporary file, as described here: https://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=28376#p130613