VBS going to a URL in the background

Question

I would like to have my VB script go to a URL in the background. It can open a browser in the background and close it afterwards. The more "silent" the better. I had 2 implementations that work on my machine but doesn't work on another:

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") 
Return = WshShell.Run("iexplore.exe " &  myURL, 1) 

Here's another:

Set objExplorer = WScript.CreateObject _
("InternetExplorer.Application", "IE_")
objExplorer.Navigate myURL
'Determines if the window is visible or not
objExplorer.Visible = 0
'Suspend the script for 1 minute
WScript.Sleep 6000
'Close the IE (instantiated) window
objExplorer.quit

...where myURL is a string variable containing the URL.

I can't figure out why either of the above works on my laptop but not on the server. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

If you're looking for a silent approach I'd suggest to drop the Internet Explorer COM object entirely and go for an XMLHttpRequest object:

myURL = "http://www.google.com/"

Set req = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP.6.0")
req.Open "GET", myURL, False
req.Send

WScript.Echo req.ResponseText

Answer 2

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") 
Return = WshShell.Run("iexplore.exe " &  myURL, 1) 
WScript.Sleep 10000
WshShell.SendKeys "{F6}"
WScript.Sleep 500
WshShell.SendKeys "y"
WScript.Sleep 500
WshShell.SendKeys "o"
WScript.Sleep 500
WshShell.SendKeys "u"
WScript.Sleep 500
WshShell.SendKeys "t"
WScript.Sleep 500
WshShell.SendKeys "u"
WScript.Sleep 500
WshShell.SendKeys "b"
WScript.Sleep 500
WshShell.SendKeys "e"
WScript.Sleep 500
WshShell.SendKeys "{ENTER}"
WScript.Sleep 500