PRB: Events Not Firing When IE4 WebBrowser Placed On Web Page

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This article was previously published under Q183048

Symptoms

WebBrowser events such as DocumentComplete, DownloadComplete, BeforeNavigate2, and others do not fire when you host the WebBrowser control in an HTML page under Internet Explorer 4.0x.

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Cause

The WebBrowser ActiveX control is not designed to be used in an HTML OBJECT tag.

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Resolution

Microsoft does not support use of the WebBrowser control in an HTML OBJECT tag. Microsoft recommends using IFRAME or FRAMEs instead of embedding the WebBrowser control in HTML.

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Status

This behavior is by design.

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More information

You cannot write Script event handlers for WebBrowser control events, such as DocumentComplete, BeforeNavigate2, and other events, when you host the WebBrowser control in an HTML page by using the OBJECT tag. These events are not fired. These events are not fired even if the WebBrowser control is wrapped in another ActiveX control and then embedded in HTML.

If the reason for hosting the WebBrowser control in an HTML page is to display documents within your Web page, Microsoft recommends that you use the IFRAME tag.

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior

Type and then save the following HTML as C:\Page1.htm:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
   <TITLE>WebBrowser Control in HTML</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">
Sub WebBrowser1_BeforeNavigate2(pDisp, URL, Flags, _
      TargetFrameName,  PostData, Headers, Cancel)
   MsgBox "BeforeNavigate2"
end sub

Sub WebBrowser1_DocumentComplete(pDisp, URL)
   MsgBox "DocumentComplete"
end sub

Sub Window_OnLoad()
   WebBrowser1.Navigate "http://www.microsoft.com"
End Sub
</SCRIPT>