I am setting a script to pin internet explorer to task-bar for all users using Power Shell. the code i have run only is successfully for pinning notepad but i want it to work for internet explorer. Any one who can help me on this?
$sa = new-object -com shell.application
$pn = $sa.namespace($env:windir).parsename('iexplorer.exe')
$pn.invokeverb('taskbarpin')
I have tried putting parsename('notepad.exe') and it ran,But i want to put internet explorer like this parsename('iexplorer.exe').
When i run the code the console says powershell: You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression.
if you check what $pn.items() returns, you can see there is no internet explorer.
You need to use the installation path of the internet explorer as an namespace.
Try it like that:
$sa.namespace("C:\Program Files\internet explorer").parsename('iexplore.exe')
Note:
Transfered comment to answer
Related
I'm trying to download an file from a particular website by clicking on the file icon. Website login works but i'm hoping to use keystroke "TAB" to navigate to the excel file and finally key "Enter" to download. Ran the code but resulted in the Powershell text of "FALSE". Any advice is appreciated! Thanks.
Reference: Table screenshot
$url = "https://abcdefg.com"
$username="test#gmail.com"
$password="TestPW"
$ie = New-Object -com internetexplorer.application;
$ie.visible = $true;
$ie.navigate($url);
while ($ie.Busy -eq $true)
{
Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 1000;
}
$ie.Document.getElementById("txtEmail").value = $username
$ie.Document.getElementByID("txtPassword").value=$password
$ie.Document.getElementById("Login").Click();
Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 10000
$obj = new-object -com WScript.Shell
$obj.AppActivate('Internet Explorer')
$obj.SendKeys('{TAB}')
$obj.SendKeys('{TAB}')
$obj.SendKeys('{TAB}')
$obj.SendKeys('{TAB}')
$obj.SendKeys('{Enter}')
Why are you doing that vs using web scraping to find the link you are trying to hit, and use the link URL directly?
Your post is really a duplicate of this Q&A.
Use PowerShell to automate website login and file download
SendKeys could work, but they are very hinky and on different systems may not function as you'd expect. There are better tools dedicated to do this, AutoIT, Selenium, WASP
--- That WASP tool still works, but has not been updated in a long while.
Using PowerShell 2.0 With Selenium to Automate Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome
Internet Explorer
Next you want to obtain the Internet Explorer driver from this site. I
recommend version 2.41 because “as of 15 April 2014, IE 6 is no longer
supported”. This must reside in your current PATH so in your script
you may want to modify your PATH to ensure the executable
(IEDriverServer.exe) can be found there. If you’re wondering whether
to get the 32-bit or the 64-bit version, start with the 32-bit even if
you’ve got a 64-bit Windows.
At this point you’ll want to quickly instantiate Internet Explorer and
navigate somewhere. Great. Let’s do it.
# Load the Selenium .Net library
Add-Type -Path "C:\selenium\WebDriver.dll" # put your DLL on a local hard drive!
# Set the PATH to ensure IEDriverServer.exe can found
$env:PATH += ";N:\selenium"
# Instantiate Internet Explorer
$ie_object = New-Object "OpenQA.Selenium.IE.InternetExplorerDriver"
# Great! Now we have an Internet Explorer window appear. We can navigate to a new URL:
$ie_object.Navigate().GoToURL( "http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages" )
# This worked! The call won’t return until the page download is complete.
# Next let’s click on a link from the link text:
$link = $ie_object.FindElementByLinkText( "Spanish" )
$link.Click()
# display current URL
$ie_object.Url
Selenium Tutorial: All You Need To Know About Selenium WebDriver
Update for the OP
As for...
However the file does not have a redirected URL
Then you need to look deeper at the site, to find the anchor to the file that you can force click on.
Example:
# Scrape a web page with PowerShell
$w = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri 'https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerShell'
$w | Get-Member
$w.AllElements
$w.AllElements.Count
$w.Links.Count
$w.Links
$w.Forms
$w.Forms.Fields
$w.Forms[0]
$w.Forms[0].Fields
$w.RawContent
$w.ParsedHtml
once you find tag names, or the like, you need to parse that to get stuff out of it.
$w.AllElements | Where-Object -Property 'TagName' -EQ 'P' | Select-Object -Property 'InnerText'
For tables you have to dig more.
Extracting Tables from PowerShell’s Invoke-WebRequest
I have been trying to get this to work via a game control panel TCAdmin.
$ModPg1 = Invoke-WebRequest "http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=731604991"
$ModVer1 = ($ModPg1.ParsedHtml.getElementsByTagName('div') | Where{ $_.className -eq 'detailsStatRight' } ).innerText | Select -Last 1
If I run this cmdlet via a program like TCAdmin (or task scheduler), I get the following error....
Invoke-WebRequest : The response content cannot be parsed because the Internet Explorer engine is not available, or Internet Explorer's first-launch configuration is not complete. Specify the UseBasicParsing parameter and try again.
Explorer is installed, and set up. The script works just fine if I run it manually.
My guess is there is a way to get TCAdmin to run the scripts the same way I would as a windows User.
Cant find a way nearly as simple to scrape the info 'm looking for.
As for this...
get TCAdmin to run the scripts the same way I would as a windows User.
For any app to run as a user, that users profile must be used on the host where the code is to be run. You cannot natively run PoSH on a host as another user context. This is not a PoSH issue, it is a Windows User Principal security boundary. There are tools that let you do this. For example SysInternal PSExec and AutoIT. Yet as stated that error is pretty specific. The user profile for Internet Explorer has not been created and that only happens when you use IE at least once.
So, as Adam points, out, use the setting the error message states to use or use your code to start IE at least once.
$SomeUrl = 'https://stackoverflow.com'
$ie = New-Object -com internetexplorer.application
$ie.visible = $true
$ie.navigate($SomeUrl)
while ($ie.Busy -eq $true) { Start-Sleep -Seconds 1 } # Wait for IE to settle.
Again, if trying to run this in the context of another user, the two above tools will get you there, but you still have to fire up IE to have a profile for it.
I'm trying to develop my own Boxstarter script for spinning up new machines. I just realized that I'd really like to add a line that will change default applications to open certain file types. For example, I want to open .txt files with Notepad++. I know how to do this by right-click the file and checking it's properties, but is there a line I can add to my Boxstarter script that will do it? Or, since Boxstarter is basically a special set of PowerShell commands, is there a PowerShell command I can invoke directly to change the opens with property? I did some searching, and most of the results were about how to get PowerShell to open something, not change the opens with property. The rest were all about how to open PowerShell.
Another similar, but not quite the same, way to go about this is to change the file association you want to associate with a particular applicaition. Chocolatey includes some helper commands to do this and is therefore available to your Boxstarter package. Here is an excerpt from one of my Boxstarter packages:
Install-ChocolateyFileAssociation ".txt" "$env:programfiles\Sublime Text 2\sublime_text.exe"
Install-ChocolateyFileAssociation ".dll" "$($Boxstarter.programFiles86)\jetbrains\dotpeek\v1.1\Bin\dotpeek32.exe"
So now double clicking on any text file opens sublime or any dll opens dotpeek.
But I agree. Its still helpful to be able to add to the "Open With..." list.
Thanks to #Raf for pointing me in the right direction. Here's the code to change the OpensWith property of .txt files:
$principal = [System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent().Name
$key = [Microsoft.Win32.Registry]::CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt\UserChoice",[Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKeyPermissionCheck]::ReadWriteSubTree,[System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]::ChangePermissions)
$acl = $key.GetAccessControl()
$right = "SetValue"
$denyrule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryAccessRule($principal,$right,"DENY")
$ret = $acl.RemoveAccessRule($denyrule)
$ret = $key.SetAccessControl($acl)
Set-ItemProperty -Path HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt\UserChoice -Name ProgId -Value Applications\notepad++.exe
Slightly modified from an answer in the TechNet forums.
I haven't figured out if there's a boxstarter shortcut for this, but changing the ACL rules was the key. Without it, you don't have the proper access to change this particular registry item. Even when I tried running Powershell as Admin and made sure I had all the right permissions on the UserChoice key (both the administrator account and my user account had Full Control), I kept getting an error that the Requested registry access is not allowed.
I'm trying to create a shortcut on a remote desktop in the domain here, and I'm a domain admin. If I run the following code directly on the target machine, the shortcut can be created and is able to lead me to the target path.
$shortcutpath3 = "c:\Users\Public\Desktop\Shortcuts to Test Custom\VV 1211 -TC.lnk"
$WshShell3 = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut3 = $WshShell3.CreateShortcut($shortcutpath3)
$Shortcut3.TargetPath = "\\machine\testcustom\"
$Shortcut3.Save()
I saved this script as test.ps1, run it with folloing code on a different mahchine. The code ends without any errors/warings, and the shortcut is created on the target machine with the propeties i specified. But it cannot lead me to the target place, it actually ask me to pick a program to open that file. I compared the properties of the 2 shortcuts, and found that the "target type" of the broken shortcut is "file" while it is "file folder" for a good shortcut.
Invoke-Command -ComputerName TARGETSERVER -FilePath test.ps1
Any idea how i can fix this? And why is this happening? Thank!!!
I had the same problem and and I used Get-Item to make it work. Try this:
$targetPath = Get-Item("\\machine\testcustom\")
$WshShell3 = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut3 = $WshShell3.CreateShortcut($shortcutpath3)
$Shortcut3.TargetPath = $targetPath.FullName
$Shortcut3.Save()
Since you're a domain admin I'd strongly recommend doing this with a Group Policy Preference. You can restrict shortcut creation to particular users/groups/computers/etc. via item-level targeting.
I've been battling this for the past several hours, Googling to no avail. For posterity, here's my summary. While alternatives suggestions are appreciated:
PowerShell inexplicably has no direct way to create a shortcut. It can create symbolic link, but 1) it requires admin rights, and 2) it behaves differently.
Group Policy Preferences are great--but only if your machines are in office or routinely on a VPN.
If you're trying to create a shortcut to a network folder, setting the TargetPath to that folder only works if the computer actually can reach it when the script runs, i.e. same issue as with Group Policy Preferences. PowerShell will create the shortcut, but the Target Type will be a File rather than a File Folder (and I found no info online how to control that; trailing slash or not doesn't matter).
The behavior of running these code suggestions varies depending whether you run this interactively or as a script.
Here's what I found does work:
Set the $shortcut.TargetPath to "C:\Windows\Explorer.exe"
Add a line: $shortcut.Arguments = """Target folder""" (the """ are needed as an escape character for the shortcut to show as C:\Windows\Explorer.exe "Target folder")
So for your example above, the following should work (assuming permissions to c:\Users\Public\Desktop):
$shortcutpath3 = "c:\Users\Public\Desktop\Shortcuts to Test Custom\VV 1211 -TC.lnk"
$WshShell3 = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut3 = $WshShell3.CreateShortcut($shortcutpath3)
$Shortcut3.TargetPath = "C:\Windows\Explorer.exe"
$shortcut.Arguments = """\\machine\testcustom\"""
$Shortcut3.Save()
I want to write a script that loads a url (eg. http://google.com) automatically. But I don't want to install any 3rd party libraries or programs to the server. what's the easiest way to do this?
I just my options are batch script, vb script or powershell right?
FYI from PowerShell, if you want to retrieve the contents of the URL you can do this;
$page = (new-object net.webclient).DownloadString("http://www.bing.com")
$page # writes the contents to the console
If you just want to open it in a browser:
Start-Process http://www.bing.com
Or using the start alias
start http://www.bing.com
Start-Process is new in PowerShell 2.0.
The beauty of Powershell is it has so many ways to do something.
This is my Powershell 2.0 example code - consisting of a Pause function to allow the site to open. It uses Internet Explorer as the browser. In this case - IE is a better browser than the others because it integrates with Powershell through a verbose API.
$url = "http://www.google.com/"
$ie = new-object -com "InternetExplorer.Application"
$ie.Navigate($url)
There are many different functions attached to this object. I recommend loading up the Powershell command line, typing in the above code, and checking what other functions this object has. Type $ie. and pressing TAB iterates through all the methods of this library.
The more I learn of Powershell, the more exciting it becomes. There is nothing it cannot do on Windows.
you can use vbscript
url="http://somewhere.com"
Set objHTTP = CreateObject( "WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1" )
objHTTP.Open "GET", url, False
objHTTP.Send
wscript.Echo objHTTP.ResponseText
objFile.Close