Process.Start(“microsoft-edge:”) gives me Win32Exception

Question

When I execute the following line of code:

Process.Start("microsoft-edge:");

Or

Process.Start("microsoft-edge:http://localhost");

It gives me this error:

System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: 'The system cannot find the file specified.'

When I run microsoft-edge: using Win+R it works.

I'm using .netcore 3.0.0-preview6-27804-01

Any idea why this is happening?

---

Edit:

These are not working either:

Process.Start(@"c:\Windows\System32\LaunchWinApp.exe:http://localhost");
Process.Start(@"http://localhost");

All other executables on my system work.

Also this is working too but I can't open a specific webpage with it:

Process.Start("explorer", @"shell:Appsfolder\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe!MicrosoftEdge");

Answer 1

You cannot simply open a url with the expected call Process.Start("url");

You have to create a ProcessStartInfo and pass your browser and url as arguments:

Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo("cmd", $"/c start microsoft-edge:http://localhost") { CreateNoWindow = true });

(edit) The use of ProcessStartInfo is required because we need to set its CreateNoWindow = true to prevent cmd window from showing up.

But as this code not only can be run on a Windows machine, i'd consider using something more cross-platform specific like this (https://brockallen.com/2016/09/24/process-start-for-urls-on-net-core/):

public void OpenBrowser(string url)
{
    try
    {
        Process.Start(url);
    }
    catch
    {
        if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Windows))
        {
            Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo("cmd", $"/c start {url}") { CreateNoWindow = true });
        }
        else if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Linux))
        {
            Process.Start("xdg-open", url);
        }
        else if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.OSX))
        {
            Process.Start("open", url);
        }
        else
        {
            throw;
        }
    }
}

And call it with OpenBrowser("http://localhost");

Answer 2

Windows Run window (Win+R) know how to resolve "microsoft-edge:" to the Path Of Executable. When you call it through Run window, it first resolves to the path. Then the actual executable from that path is executed.

With Process.Start, there is no this resolution of path. It only look for some paths like application path or PATH variables. Obviously, it does not find the executable to run and hence the error.

If you have a path variable declared in your system using quotes, you must fully qualify that path when starting any process found in that location. Otherwise, the system will not find the path. For example, if c:\mypath is not in your path, and you add it using quotation marks: path = %path%;"c:\mypath", you must fully qualify any process in c:\mypath when starting it.

Source

Note that command line parameters are not allowed by this overload:

This overload does not allow command-line arguments for the process. If you need to specify one or more command-line arguments for the process, use the Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo) or Process.Start(String, String) overloads.