I need to open IE from VB.net. I see the two most popular suggestions are:

. VB's Shell function (ShellExecute ??)
. COM "Microsoft Web Browser Control" reference

I can't get the Shell function to work, and the Browser control isn't listed in the COM references that can be added (I'm assuming it's not already a referenced component.

Any suggestions or alternatives?

To open a url:

To open internet explorer:

Thanks ... ran across that option after my post yesterday. I'll us it for now, but remains to be seen if I'll have control over browser opened in that manner:

. ultimately looking to retrieve data from a remote SQL database through an ASP page and import it to update a local database
. would like to do so with the retrieval running behind the scenes (will probably run this as a service) and don't want users of the local PC to see it happening

Would still like to try the Shell function or MS Web Browser Control navigate method, but the local process option you suggested will allow me to pull the data for now to set up the data manipulation.

Any additional help you can provide relative my last paragraph would be most appreciated.