Process.Start(url) broken on Windows 8/Chrome - are there alternatives?

Question

To open a URL from a .NET application, many sites (including on StackOverflow) cite this example:

Process.Start("http://www.google.com/");

On Windows 8, this works if Internet Explorer is the default browser. However if Google Chrome is the default, it fails with:

Unhandled Exception: System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: Class not registered

Does this suggest that this method is no longer the right way to open URL's on Windows? What alternatives exist? Is it safer to just launch Internet Explorer directly?

Answer 1

You may try to specify the Process filename "explorer.exe" explicitly, like suggested in the following thread:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/nl-BE/toolsforwinapps/thread/e051a102-469e-4ede-882c-c2c89377652a

var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("explorer.exe", url);
Process.Start(startInfo);