I tried to do this with _spawnl(), but first of all I'm not sure how to properly ask for the path to iexplore.exe, as I'm sure it will change every time MS gets a whim to move it. I know there's a GetWindowsDirectory() call, but that's not where IE resides (its in "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" in XP, Lord know where on win 7 or 8).

Also, even temporarily hard coding the path to make it launch with spawnl(), I can't seem to get my html document to display. I know the path to that is right (since I put it there ).

char * pFile = "someFile.htm";
char * pCmd = "C:\\Program Files\\Internet Explorer\\iexplore.exe";

int res = _spawnl(_P_NOWAIT, pCmd,pCmd, pFile, NULL); // also tried without specifying pCmd 2x

if (res == -1) MessageBox("Sorry... can\'t Open File.");

So my second question would be, how to you PROPERLY pass the file to view as an argument.

thanks for any help!