explorer.exe cannot open URLs with arguments in them

[cheshrkat]

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17763.253]
using WSL Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS

Background: I have a release script which does a bunch of automated things, then guides the user through a couple of manual actions where they have to go to a URL. In other shells the script opens the URL for them to make things easier, but I discovered explorer.exe via WSL cannot open URLs with arguments. It can open URLs without arguments, so this seems like a bug. Albeit not the end of the world, still a bug :)

STEPS TO REPRODUCE...

These do work as expected (that is, the URL opens in the system default browser):

$ explorer.exe http://example.com
$ /mnt/c/Windows/explorer.exe http://example.com

These do not work as expected:

$ explorer.exe https://example.com?foo=bar
$ explorer.exe "https://example.com\?foo=bar"
$ explorer.exe 'https://example.com?foo=bar'
$ explorer.exe 'http://example.com?foo=bar'
$ explorer.exe "https://example.com\?foo\=bar"
$ explorer.exe 'https://example.com\?foo\=bar'
$ explorer.exe http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%3Ffoo%3Dbar
$ explorer.exe 'http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%3Ffoo%3Dbar'
$ /mnt/c/Windows/explorer.exe 'http://example.com?foo=bar'

Expected result:
URL opens in browser

Actual result:
Generic file explorer window opens

I did find this workaround:

$ cmd.exe /c start http://example.com?foo=bar

...although I've not yet tested it in my release script (it's something I can't test at home on a weekend :)).

Raising a ticket anyway because it seems like a bug that some URLs will open with explorer.exe and others won't. If it's not considered a bug, this issue should at least tip others off to the workaround.

[therealkenc]

This is continuation #2835 formerly #1625 (message), others. Those talk about spaces a lot, but the problem is the escaping. You need to punch a quote through to the Windows side, otherwise that ? is problematic. The quotes in all the variations you tried are being eaten by /bin/bash. [Trying to http escape the ? was well meaning but won't work in cmd.exe either, for reasons unrelated to WSL.]

You might expect the following to work:

$ echo \"http://example.com\?foo=bar\"
"http://example.com?foo=bar"        <-- same string as you'd want use from a cmd prompt
$ explorer.exe \"http://example.com\?foo=bar\"

But it doesn't. It isn't clear to me whether that is by design or otherwise. Standard operating procedure seems to be to bounce it off cmd.exe or powershell.exe explicitly.

[cheshrkat]

Thanks for the info. Seems like the other ticket covers it; I'll run with the cmd.exe workaround in the meantime.

[pascal-t]

The cmd.exe workaround did not work for me. It opened the browser but the arguments were gone.
Instead this worked: rundll32.exe url.dll,FileProtocolHandler "https://url.com/path/index.php?arg1=foo&arg2=$bash_var"
From https://stackoverflow.com/a/49115945