ShellExecute for an http: URL gets ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND

  • Thread starter Thread starter Clark Wilson
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Clark Wilson

I am trying to debug what may be a registry problem. Windows 2000 Professional, all patches applied.

I recently installed, tested, and uninstalled a shareware browser. (It used IE as its rendering engine but managed other stuff itself.) After I uninstalled it I noticed some programs got an error or silently failed to launch IE when I tried to open a link. Others worked okay. IE itself seems happy.

One of the unhappy programs is a PC Magazine utility "Jump To It," which comes with sourcecode. I think I identified the failing line as

int nRet = (int) ShellExecute(NULL,"open",strURL,strParams,strDir,SW_SHOWNORMAL);

and it seems to be passing a URL as the file parameter for the ShellExecute command, and it seems to be receiving a return value identified by ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND. I conclude that my system's mechanism for opening a raw "http://" URL is broken.

I re-installed IE6 and did a "repair" but that didn't fix it. I have searched and re-searched the registry with no enlightenment.

Can someone tell me how to diagnose and fix this problem? Or tell me where on MSDN I could find documentation of the process by which ShellExecute opens an "http://" URL and what registry entries if any it uses?

TIA.

Clark Wilson
 
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