I want to run some system commands (to fix things) before running an executable. I have a reasonably locked down (work) Windows XP system and so can't change what a shortcut points to. For my users' convenience, I must keep the same shortcut. However, I am able to swap out the .exe (renaming) and potentially replace it with another .exe (of the same name) which runs my system commands and then runs the original .exe.
What would be the easiest and quickest language/compiler to do this in? Previously, I've done this sort of thing in C (and tried it today in Python using py2exe without much success). Preferably free solutions.
Visual C# 2008 Express Edition is
free
comes with a compiler
outputs exes
C# is a good choice if you have C
experience
.net currently is the "canonical"
Windows platform
Related
The question I'm asking is a bit unclear, I think it's a bit hard to explain it with only one line. Here's my situation: I have a Bitbucket repertory which is cloned in both an Linux environment and Windows environment. The problem I have is:
1- I need to read and write from files and the paths to the different locations must be changed every time I commit and push. Hence, if I was working on Windows and made a push, when I go back to Linux and need to pull and change the paths I used.
2- I'm running selenium with Python. In order to make it work on my Linux serverless machine, I need to create a virtual display with pyvirtualdisplay library. Hence, some code that needs to be executed on my Linux machine must not be executed on my Windows machine.
So the problem I got is if I work on my Windows machine, I need to comment out the lines that creates the virtual display.
These two problems takes me a lot of time, because everytime I pull in a different machine, I can't directly work on the code, but have to change the code first.
Pretty simple. What you are looking for is to import the 'os' module.
import os
Then you can get the "name" of the current running Operating System by checking: os.name.
You can then base if or case statements, or however you want to manage your code, on what OS is reported.
To be clear, I would wrap the code I want to run only in a certain environment in an if statement that determines which OS is running and runs the appropriate code block based on the result.
if [[ os.name == "nt" ]]; then
;do Windows stuff
else
;do linux stuff
fi
Additional Note! That was psuedocode based on general Bash scripting.
This is Python psuedocode:
if os.name == "nt":
; Do Windows Stuff
else:
; Do Linux Stuff
Your first issue can be solved by handling the paths in a configuration file instead of hard-coding them in the program itself (and possibly using the pathlib or os.path modules for the actual path manipulations), then telling git to ignore the config file. You can then create appropriate configurations on each system, and git won't bother them at all.
Your second issue can be solved by using any of the various methods Python gives you to figure out what OS you're running on, and then using simple conditional statements to match on them. In theory, you could do the same for the paths, but it really is better in the long run to get in the habit of properly separating runtime configuration like that from program logic. Options for this include:
os.name: Contains posix, nt, or java, which identifies what type of OS you're on. java for Jython, nt for Windows,posix` for pretty much everything else. Useful when you just care about certain low-level OS semantics.
sys.platform: Contains a generic name for the underlying OS ABI. win32 for Windows, darwin for macOS, linux for Linux, and the name of the OS for other UNIX variants. This lets you check for particular underlying platforms, and is generally what you should use for conditional code that only runs on one platform. Make sure to always check this with a construct like sys.platform.startswith('X'), as some platforms and Python implementations include version info after the OS name.
platform.system(): Similar to sys.platform, except that the returned string is more user-friendly (Windows for Windows, Linux for Linux, etc), and it returns an empty string if it can't figure out what OS you're on. Useful for displaying the OS to the user, but not for doing conditionals (because it's free-form and may not always return useful information).
Our VB6 application relies heavily on the use of scrrun.dll (Windows Scripting Host). Until a year ago we used to deploy this dll with our installer. Since the Windows Scripitng Host is supposed to be part of Windows we removed the dll from the installation package. However, now and then surface customers who have a non functional scrrun.dll on their system and we have to help them reinstall or reregister it.
So, should we put the scrrun.dll back in the installation package? Should we perform some check on installation? Or should we just live with the fact that we have to provide hands on support to some of our customers to set their systems right?
Don't try to deploy these libraries as part of a normal setup.
Microsoft Scripting Runtime must be installed through the use of a
self-extracting .exe file. For versions of Scripting Runtime mentioned
at the beginning of this article, the only way to distribute it is to
use the complete self extracting .exe file located at the following
locations...
It is possible that some users employ an older anti-malware suite, many of which tried to disable scripting. It is more likely though that some users have managed to break their Windows installation, either themselves or by using applications improperly packaged to try to include these libraries - and blindly remove them from the system on uninstall (cough, cough - Inno).
The libraries involved have been tailored code for some time. This is why the ancient .CAB file was "recalled" long ago. There is no single copy of them intended to run on any random version of Windows, and there are no redist packs for any modern version of Windows. The correct fix is a system restore or repair install.
While this can't be blamed directly on InnoSetup because it is the result of poorly authored scripts it is frustrating enough and common enough that I won't cry when its signature is added to anti-malware suites. There are just too many poorly written examples loose in the wild copy/pasted by too many people.
I spend plenty of time undoing the damage caused by uninstalls of these applications and have grown quite weary of it. Where possible I use isolated assemblies now in self-defense, which helps a lot. Windows File Protection is getting better about preventing abusive action for system files too.
But in general you are much better off avoiding any dependency on scripting tools in an application. There isn't very much that they can do as well as straight code anyway, though it may take some time to write alternative logic.
My build script runs on linux and invokes things like gcc, shell scripts, etc.
Part of the solution is written in mono and could be compiled easily on linux.
But I want to obfuscate the code. Not manually, but as part of the build process.
Therefore I need to invoke Dotfuscator and Dotfuscator so far only runs on windows.
Is there a good solutions to invoke command line based workers/build scripts remotely from linux on a windows machine? I don't just want to run a command remotely, but also pass files along.
Like a windows service that is accessed using simple curl-uploads of a tar file, creates a temp folder for each concurrently connected client (or blocks concurrent calls) and unpacks the file, invokes something on these files and packages the result again as tar file to give it back to the caller? And clears the temp file even in case of failures?
Maybe someone knows a good solution that saves me from writing this myself!
It should not be so uncommon that a build process spans multiple platforms, yet common build server answers I found mainly talk about only one build script.
Also think about running e.g. the nsis setup builder from a linux driven build script, if part of your solution has a tiny windows component
How can I run AHK scripts on IronAHK?
Is this even possible?
Is there a method to convert scripts to IronAHK?
Thanks,
Odinulf.
If you look at the development status mentioned by Wimmel you'll see that it's far from complete. IronAHK isn't ready for use.
There are two alternatives: running AutoHotkey in WINE, and using a virtual Windows OS. WINE doesn't allow any hotkeys, sending keys, etc. It does let you make GUIs and do string processing.
Running in an emulator lets you have a full Windows desktop in a window and you can set any permissions you like, such as sharing folders with your host and manipulating the clipboard. VMWare and VirtualBox are both popular for this. You do need a Windows installation disk for these.
According to the road map the goal for version 1.0 is Complete AutoHotkey compatibility on Windows. So possibly you need to modify your script if it uses functionality not yet implemented.
See also development status and AutoHotkey compatibility.
I work part-time as a computer tech at the local high school. They needed a system to keep track of all the computers in the district (things like physical location of the machines and serial numbers for inventory), and told me to keep it on a budget. I sat down and wrote a little thousand-line script in Perl/Tk, which accesses a PostgreSQL database on the local server.
I also successfully wrote a launcher in C++ and compiled it with bcc32, so they can single-click the launcher executable to start the program without having to type anything into DOS. That works fine, and I can load this program myself by manually installing all the dependencies for it by hand.
I would like to build a setup program to automatically load the PostgreSQL application, Strawberry Perl, as well as the Tk, and DBD::Pg libraries, and finally, of course, the folder my application is stored in. It'd be nice to be able to create desktop shortcuts or start menu items too.
Has anyone had any success with software to generate .MSI files for Windows Installer on Windows XP and above? If so, what did you use, and did it cost any money? Alternatively, where do I need to begin reading in order to write my own setup program?
Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
I'm not sure if this will do everything you want, but have you looked at Win32::InstallShield?