WebBrowser Control - .NET 3.5 - C#

Jon Braunsma

I have a network application built using C# and for the most part 99% of my users have no problems with it. I have a few users that don't have IE installed and are using Firefox as their main browser and they have reported strange behavior in my application. One user was savvy enough to install IE and saw the display issues went away. This puzzled me since I would assume when you distribute a .NET 3.5 application that it would install all of the required components. Why would an installation of IE 7 or 8 improve the look inside my application? More importantly, why is the application not working properly without IE installed. I guess that is the bigger question here. Also, I have users telling me they can't click buttons and such. I am puzzled by this since it is merely a browser control. They should be able to click buttons and navigate as they wish. 99% of my user base is funtioning flawlessly, so I know it is not the application, but the environment. Any ideas where to look? The WebControl seems to be part of the 2.0 Framework.

Not Active

Your users mostly likely have an older version of IE that was preinstalled on the machine. The .net framework and IE are two separate things, just because you install the framework components you don't automatically get the latest IE. The WebBrowser control will use whatever version of IE is available.

I know the language. I've read a book. - _Madmatt

Lost User

WebBrowser Control uses ActiveX plugin, which is not by default on firefox, so it will not behave the same way. You can install the add-on to firefox for same. some example of such add-ons are: 1) neptune See for more info http://www.meadroid.com/neptune/index.htm 2) To use ActiveX controls in Firefox 3, see this extension: http://code.google.com/p/ff-activex-host/

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Jon Braunsma

Thank you for the information. You are correct! Now I have a more interesting question. The WebBrowser object is installed with the suite of office products and I found a link on the microsoft site that allows people to install those objects, but when they click the link it says they must have MS office installed. So how do I take the Active-X control my application was built on and distribute it? It is a network application and I need to be able to distribute everything the user needs to run, but I can't force people to go buy office. Any thoughts on that?

Dave Kreskowiak

Jon Braunsma wrote:

So how do I take the Active-X control my application was built on and distribute it? It is a network application and I need to be able to distribute everything the user needs to run, but I can't force people to go buy office.

You don't. All they need is the install of Internet Explorer that your site uses to look it's best. If that's IE7, then you can provide the link to install IE7. They do not need any part of Office to use the WebBrowser control.

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