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
Related
Automating a process where i download a report from a link and save it in a particular folder. I can use sendkeys to automate this but under headless condition it fails. Is there any way in powershell to automate this.
So you need to download a file via Powershell. You'll need to know a direct link to it, then you can automate it via this script:
$url = "http://your-site/report.xlsx"
$output = "$PSScriptRoot\report.xlsx"
$wc = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$wc.DownloadFile($url, $output)
There are other options how to download the file via Powershell, but this is the best tradeoff for you.
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 am attempting to get a script working that does not use invoke-webrequest. The problem I am having is that when I run the script a popup prompt occurs, the popup consists of the following message;
"Windows Security Warning
To allow this website to provide information personalized for you, will you allow it to put a small file (called a cookie) on your computer?"
with yes no response from user
The code I am executing is the following:
$ParsedHTML = New-Object -com "HTMLFILE"
$webresponse = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$webresponse.Headers.Add("Cookie", $CookieContainer.GetCookieHeader($url))
$result = $webresponse.DownloadString($url)
$ParsedHTML.IHTMLDocument2_write($webresponse)
$ParsedHTML.body.innerText
The main problem with this code is that the $url I am using part of the weblink checks to see if cookies are enabled and this code causes a returned value of disabled.
My question, is there a way to handle the cookie request without changing the output response from the test url site.
Note: This script will be automating a process over hundreds of remote computers and thus having an unhandled popup will just prevent the script from running.
I found the answer in another SO question Using Invoke-Webrequest in PowerShell 3.0 spawns a Windows Security Warning
add the parameter -UseBasicParsing
Technet https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849901.aspx notes that the parameter stops the DOM processing. and has the caveat "This parameter is required when Internet Explorer is not installed on the computers, such as on a Server Core installation of a Windows Server operating system."
So, you mileage may vary.
I'm installing a file through powershell silently, but would like to give feedback on the progress of the installation. I can't seem to find this information anywhere. This is the code I have for running the exe:
$exe = "wls1033_oepe111150_win32.exe"
$xmlLocation = Resolve-Path "silent_install.xml"
$xmlLocation = "-silent_xml=" + $xmlLocation
$installLogLoc = Resolve-Path "wls_install.log"
$installLogLoc = "-log=" + $installLogLoc
$AllArgs = #('-mode=silent', $xmlLocation, $installLogLoc)
$filePath = Resolve-Path $exe
$p = New-Object System.Diagnostics.Process
$p.StartInfo.Filename = $filePath
$p.StartInfo.Arguments = $AllArgs
$p.Start();
$p.WaitForExit();
Is there even a way to do this? I do get a progress meter for the extraction process in an alternate command window that installs the exe, but other than that it sits for there about 10 minutes with no sort of indication.
Edit: So seeing as this isn't possible, is there a way to do an asynchronous pipeline call while running the exe?
Thanks
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99% sure that this is NOT possible. Your exe file is seperate process and not a PowerShell script. It will not be able to pass status messages to your PowerShell sessions. The only possibility would be to detect the setups log-file, tail it and update a progressbar in PowerShell based on keywords from the log. This is however a big task and something you need to customize for each setup file.
I would try to look into your exe file and see if it has a "basic ui" (or a similar type) mode that you can use instead of the silent option. A last alternative would be to repackage the setup with such an option(making installation automated with only progressbar). This solution would still only show the progressbar in a separate window and not in PowerShell itself.
I am currently doing the automation with power shell and I am stuck in the following problem ,
I have automated internet explorer with scripting in power shell,
But now i need to automate Firefox using this , i have searched and not able to track down ,
Is there any way or is it possible to automate FF with power shell ....suggestions are required.
Have a look at http://watin.org/ You can work with the watin.dll wich supports multiple browsers..
I started to use it because i needed a File Upload which comobject InternetExplorer.Application can't do...
Little snippet to get you started:
$watin = [Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom( "c:\WatiN.Core.dll" )
$ie = new-object WatiN.Core.IE("http://xyz.com") #Here you could load also Firefox with watin
$ie.TextField([watin.core.Find]::ByName("HF_Text1")).TypeText("Text1")
$ie.FileUpload([watin.core.Find]::ByName("HF_file")).Set("C:\text.txt")
$ie.Button([watin.core.Find]::ByName("HF_Button")).Click()
$ie.WaitForComplete()
$ie.quit()
Note that you have to run Powershell in STA Mode when using WatiN (powershell.exe -sta)