Wush,
Have you actually tried this? I have and it doesn't work. In fact, I have machines running windows 98, windows 2000 and windows nt and it doesn't work on any of them. The reason is because IExplore.exe is not in the system path (and there is no reason for it to be). That is why I used the complete path in my example above and why I said that this solution is NOT PORTABLE.
Please try running the examples that you give before you offer them as a solution. All of the things you say 'should' work, don't.
Regards,
Charles