How to get an Instance of IWebBrowser2 - c++

Question

I am a bit new to C++, please be gentle.
I am trying to automate Internet Explorer. I have a simple Win32 console application where I am trying to create an instance of IE using a local server.
However, my call to CoCreateInstance() doesn't return an object to initialize my IWebBrowser2 variable.
I could use some help to see what I am missing.
Here is my code:
HRESULT InstanciateIEResult;
HRESULT NavigateResult;
HRESULT ShowBrowserResult;
VARIANT * empty = new VARIANT();
BSTR URL = L"bing.com";
IWebBrowser2* pBrowser2;
InstanciateIEResult = CoCreateInstance(CLSID_InternetExplorer, NULL, CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER,
IID_IWebBrowser2, (void**)&pBrowser2);
if(pBrowser2)
{
//never reach here
NavigateResult = pBrowser2->Navigate(URL, empty, empty, empty, empty);
ShowBrowserResult = pBrowser2->put_Visible(VARIANT_TRUE);
}
I am also not sure how to decode what the HRESULT returns. If you know, that would be helpful as well.
I was looking at documentation on IWebBrowser2 interface and CoCreateInstance.

Answer 1

You need to call CoInitialize() before using COM objects.
Also, you need to use SysAllocString() to allocate the string.
Example:
#include <windows.h>
#include <MsHTML.h>
#include <Exdisp.h>
#include <ExDispid.h>
int WINAPI wWinMain(HINSTANCE, HINSTANCE, LPTSTR, int)
{
CoInitialize(NULL);
HRESULT InstanciateIEResult;
HRESULT NavigateResult;
HRESULT ShowBrowserResult;
VARIANT empty;
VariantInit(&empty);
IWebBrowser2* browser = NULL;
HRESULT hr = CoCreateInstance(CLSID_InternetExplorer, NULL,
CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER, IID_IWebBrowser2, (void**)&browser);
if (browser)
{
BSTR URL = SysAllocString(L"bing.com");
NavigateResult = browser->Navigate(URL, &empty, &empty, &empty, &empty);
SysFreeString(URL);
ShowBrowserResult = browser->put_Visible(VARIANT_TRUE);
browser->Release();
}
CoUninitialize();
return 0;
}