C# – Open a html file using default web browser

browserc

I'm using this to get the path and executable of default web browser:

public static string DefaultWebBrowser
        {
            get
            {

                string path = @"\http\shell\open\command";

                using (RegistryKey reg = Registry.ClassesRoot.OpenSubKey(path))
                {
                    if (reg != null)
                    {
                        string webBrowserPath = reg.GetValue(String.Empty) as string;

                        if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(webBrowserPath))
                        {
                            if (webBrowserPath.First() == '"')
                            {
                                return webBrowserPath.Split('"')[1];
                            }

                            return webBrowserPath.Split(' ')[0];
                        }
                    }

                    return null;
                }
            }
        }

And:

 protected static bool Run(string FileName, string Args)
        {
            try
            {
                Process proc = new Process();

                processInfo.FileName = FileName;
                 proc.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Normal;

                if(Args != null) proc.StartInfo.Arguments = Args;

                proc.Start();

                return true;
            }
            catch (Exception) { }

            return false;
        }

Then I call the web browser: Run(DefaultWebBrowser, "foo.html")

The question is: the above function is calling Firefox and IE (the two web browsers installed on my pc) instead of Internet Explorer, the default web browser. I have no idea how to fix this.

EDIT

I have downloaded and installed the Google Chrome, set it as default web browser, but oddly the above error don't happens with it.

Best Answer

You can replace all that code with

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(pathToHtmlFile);

This will automatically start your default browser, or rather look up the default handler for .htm or .html files and use that.

Now with Firefox set as default this can sometimes cause weird exceptions (I think if Firefox is starting for first time), so you might want to do a try/catch on it to handle that.

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