Hmm.... It seems the stock
Open URL in Default Browser VI doesn't handle file URLs all that well. I see the issue you're referring to.
What's interesting is that if you call the
Open URL in Default Browser core VI directly with a valid file:// URL, it doesn't launch the browser. It doesn't generate an error either. It just doesn't do anything. Yet, I can paste the file:// URL directly in the browser (tried IE and Firefox), so I
know the URL is valid.
You can call the
Open URL in Default Browser core VI instead of the
Open URL in Default Browser VI in the example I had shown. (The
Open URL in Default Browser VI simply replaces the spaces in the string and then calls the
Open URL in Default Browser core VI.) This seems to work with UNC paths that have spaces. Warning: One odd thing that I found is that the browser got launched, but sometimes returning to LabVIEW crashed LabVIEW. I couldn't replicate this all the time. If you encounter this issue, I would suggest the System Exec route, as done in the example VI in
this message.
It seems that NI has a little work to do with that VI and file URLs.