Selenium IWebDriver Navigate().GoToUrl() not entering url or navigating to page

I figured it out right after I finally broke down and decided to post on StackOverflow. My issue was IWebDrivers insists upon a passed in URL beginning with http. Once I prefixed my URL with that, it worked.

Here is a simple example how to do so:

1. Add NuGet package Selenium.WebDriver

2. Download chromedriver (https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/) or any other driver from http://www.seleniumhq.org/download/ (section Third Party Browser Drivers NOT DEVELOPED by seleniumhq)

3. Copy the file to your project directory in Visual Studio and set the following properties for the file:

   Build Action = None;Copy to Output Directory = Copy if newer

Once installed, try running the following example code:

var driver = new ChromeDriver();var navigate = driver.Navigate();navigate.GoToUrl("http://www.microsoft.com"); //worksnavigate.GoToUrl("www.microsoft.com"); //does not work

Good luck!

Also

navigate.GoToUrl("http:\\www.microsoft.com"); // "\\" instead of "//", wont worknavigate.GoToUrl("http://www.microsoft.com"); // that one works perfectly.

with backslashes instead of forward slashes wont work either... I've just spend about an hour, figuring this out.

URL address, correcly must be with forward slashes.