Windows: using `edge` as `workbench.externalBrowser` opens default browser too

[Neutrino-Sunset]

Type: Bug

My default browser is Firefox.
I have workbench.externalBrowser set to edge
After running npm run dev on any web project and clicking the localhost link to open the website I would expect vscode to open the website in Edge only.
What actually happens is that VsCode open the website in both Firefox and Edge

It does this will all extensions disabled.
It's very annoying.

It's a Vite React project I'm using, and in addition to opening browser tabs in both Edge and Firefox, VsCode is only actually establishing a browser link to the Firefox tab. So any compilation errors from Vite go to the Firefox console but not the Edge console. So despite having set workbench.externalBrowser to edge, the Edge browser tab that gets opened isn't even usable.

I see the same behaviour whether I run npm run dev in either the embedded cmd or Powershell terminals.

I also created a new create-react-app using the instructions from here, and then manually added an Edge launch profile as described in that guide. This also had no effect and clicking the localhost link in the enbedded terminal just ignored the workbench.externalBrowser setting and opened the website in Firefox.

VS Code version: Code 1.94.0 (d78a74b, 2024-10-02T13:08:12.626Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22631
Modes:

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700H (20 x 2918)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: enabled_on direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled vulkan: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	31.68GB (17.86GB free)
Process Argv
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions: none

[bpasero]

I can reproduce, and it seems due to launching edge writing to std-error here, which makes us fallback to the default browser:

vscode/src/vs/platform/native/electron-main/nativeHostMainService.ts

Lines 543 to 546 in dc265ad

	res.stderr?.once('data', (data: Buffer) => {
	this.logService.error(`Error openening external URL '${url}' using browser '${configuredBrowser}': ${data.toString()}`);
	return shell.openExternal(url);
	});

The error logged is:

[main 2024-10-06T13:28:29.919Z] Error openening external URL 'https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues' using browser 'edge': #< CLIXML

We are using a 3rd party library for opening: https://github.com/sindresorhus/open

If someone has ideas, marking for help wanted. Our logic to fallback to the default browser probably needs to improve, or maybe open should give a hint if launching succeeded or not.

[gy2649263674]

Device: Microsoft Windows 11
Vscode version:1.94.0
I find an odd phenomenon: when I set workbench.externalBrowser in my setting.json file with any value like 'chrome' or 'edge' my vscode can't open any external url anymore and when i leave it with space then it can open url correctly using my default brower. Why does this happen?