Open a Web Page in a Windows Batch FIle

Question

I have a batch file that does a bunch of things and at the end needs to open up a web browser to a page. Is there a way to, in essence, call ShellExecute on a http to open the web page?

Windows Command Prompt

Selfrespect

When you say MS-DOS, I presume you mean Windows command prompt, not actual standalone MS-DOS? – Handtohand

Answer 1

You can use the start command to do much the same thing as ShellExecute. For example

 start "" http://www.stackoverflow.com

This will launch whatever browser is the default browser, so won't necessarily launch Internet Explorer.

Tnt

What if we want to open this webpage in a separate browser rather than the default one ? – Esthonia

@DulithDeCozta If you want to open a webpage in a specific browser that installed on the machine you'll need to use something like: C:\path\to\browser.exe http://www.stackoverflow.com. You should ask your own question if you need more details. – Tnt

What reason to use empty quotation marks? As I see start http://www.stackoverflow.com is enough to open page in default browser. – Ulloa

@Daniechka It's in case the URL needs double quotes. The command start "http://www.stackoverflow.com" won't work, but the command start "" "http://www.stackoverflow.com" will. See: #27262192 and #44219935 – Tnt

start "chrome" localhost:8080 worked for me – Sibley

Answer 2

1.To run from the default browser, use

start http://www.stackoverflow.com

Please make sure that the appropriate browser is set as default at Control Panel-> default program :

2.To launch page from specific browser, one can use

start "iexplore.exe" http://www.stackoverflow.com

start "chrome.exe" http://www.stackoverflow.com

start "firefox.exe" http://www.stackoverflow.com

Eldred

The second part of your answer is wrong. The first argument to start in parentheses is not the name of the executable, but the title of the windows. See START /?, and verify with a non-existing executable such as start "moonlanding.exe" http://nasa.gov. – Minnesinger

Answer 3

Unfortunately, the best method to approach this is to use Internet Explorer as it's a browser that is guaranteed to be on Windows based machines. This will also bring compatibility of other users which might have alternative browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera..etc,

start "iexplore.exe" http://www.website.com

Carmon

still opens the default browser. The first quoted argument isn't the program to use, but the window title (ignored in case of a browser) – Anabel

Answer 4

When you use the start command to a website it will use the default browser by default but if you want to use a specific browser then use start iexplorer.exe www.website.com

Also you cannot have http:// in the url.

Classy

Are you sure it's not iexplore.exe – Roderich

start "chrome" localhost:8080 worked for me. you answer is not 100% correct. thanks – Sibley

Perhaps things have changed since your comment, but I now (Feb 2022) find http:// is accptable. A URL must start with either that or www. or both. Otherwise it gives a 'not found' error. – Morion

Answer 5

hh.exe (help pages renderer) is capable of opening some simple webpages:

hh http://www.nissan.com

This will work even if browsing is blocked through:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

Moulin

Answer 6

start did not work for me.

I used:

firefox http://www.stackoverflow.com

or

chrome http://www.stackoverflow.com

Obviously not great for distributing it, but if you're using it for a specific machine, it should work fine.

Jonellejones

chrome is not recognized as internal or external command. i got this error – Sibley

it worked with start chrome "website" – Sibley