R.Wieser wrote:
Paul,

Searching in the address bar, was a function specific to Internet Explorer
(which is not the same thing as File Explorer).

I'm rather amazed by that above statement, as your own experiments you
posted a bit lower down prove the opposite.

Quote:

As an experiment, on WinXP SP3 with IE6, I typed "http:www.sun.com" into the File Explorer bar at the top, and it opened IE6 *in the same window*

You can't have it both ways.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

A theory, for your consideration.

https://s26.postimg.org/ny1bn5yk9/explorer_info.gif

It involves skullduggery with MSHTML rendering engine and COM
interfaces, rather than iexplore.exe running. Explorer.exe
is using COM to get to MSHTML and render something. If the
European Union insists that iexplore.exe be removed,
Microsoft leaves the MSHTML part (the "engine"), because it
supports such functions as HTML help.

Paul