>I'd like to be able to launch Internet Explorer and navigate to a web site based on the contents of a field. The web page's address will not necessarily have an .htm or .html extension. For example: http://www.microsoft.com/support
>
If you want to launch default browser, you can use ShellExecute() or WSH Run method

lcUrl = "http://www.microsoft.com/support"
DECLARE INTEGER ShellExecute IN "Shell32.dll" ;
    INTEGER hwnd, ;
    STRING lpVerb, ;
    STRING lpFile, ;
    STRING lpParameters, ;
    STRING lpDirectory, ;
    LONG nShowCmd

= ShellExecute(0,"open", lcUrl, "","",1)
*
oShell = createobject("WScript.Shell")
oShell.Run(lcUrl, 1)

References:
- ShellExecute API #12636
- http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/script56/html/wsmthrun.asp?frame=true