Re: How to continue the execution of a perl script if the user session gets locked while running it.

[dasgar]

That's one of the gotcha's about Windows that I ran into. I don't know all of the technical stuff, but here's some things that I learned a few years ago from trying to automate a GUI program (with and without Perl).

• If no user is logged in at the local console or remotely via remote desktop, there is no GUI environment. That means no program windows are available to be automated.
• If the user is logged in via remote desktop and the connection is disconnected, the GUI environment goes away.
• If the user locks the session (or screensaver kicks in and requires login), the GUI environment goes away.
• If the user is logged in via remote desktop and does not have the remote desktop window as the active window, the GUI environment goes away.

The above may not be 100% accurate, but that's what I remember encountering in my attempts at automating GUI programs from a few years ago. Also, in the scenarios above where I said the "GUI goes away", any programs that were running continue to run. Windows just isn't using a GUI environment until the user is logged back in and actively using the desktop.

[pradeep,krishna]

Thanks buddy... but the thing i am asking is about locked user session not for user who is logged off..

[dasgar]

Guess I learned something new.

A few years ago when I was looking at automating a GUI application, I got lost with the documentation of Win32::GuiTest. Doing some Google searching, I came across AutoIt gave that a shot. Then I hit the issue that you're hitting. So I tried looking into Win32::GuiTest again. The docs made more sense, but I still hit the same issue with using Win32::GuiTest.

Anyways, I thought I would hit AutoIt's web site to see if they had any information about this type of scenario and found the following in their FAQ: Why doesn't my script work on a locked workstation?

They provide more information about what is happening and offer some alternatives. I tried looking into the documentation of Win32::GuiTest to see if I can find the equivalent functions. I'm not sure if Win32::GuiTest exposes those functions or not.

On one hand, if the information in the AutoIt FAQ is correct, there is a glimmer of hope for what you are wanting to do. On the other hand, I'm not sure I know how to advise you to apply those alternatives from that FAQ in your Perl script using Win32::GuiTest.

[Anonymous Monk]

http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/functions/ControlSend.htm says

ControlSend() works in a similar way to Send() but it can send key strokes directly to a window/control, rather than just to the active window.

So its basically like any function that takes a hwnd like many of the Win32::GuiTest functions that do

MouseClick($window [,$parent] [,$x_offset] [,$y_offset] [,$button] [,$
+delay])
$text = WMGetText($hwnd)
$set = WMSetText($hwnd,text)
SetFocus($hWnd)
PostMessage($hwnd,msg,wParam,lParam) 
SendMessage(hWnd,Msg,wParam,lParam)

And if you load Win32::GUI you can access to a whole lot more functions Re: How to get a window's menu as a Win32::GUI::Menu object?

If you want to automate anything on win32 you have to absorb the following knowledge . It mostly consists of learing the ole/excel/powerpoint... object model, and using Win32::OLE to call it or sending messages using guitest. OLE is essentially a fancy/standardised way of sending messages. Its very much like web-scraping, you have to know HTTP/HTML DOM .... the rest is just legwork

• Win32::OLE
• The behavior of Win32::OLE->new
• Using Win32::OLE and Excel - Tips and Tricks
• Automating Windows Applications with Win32::OLE - Perl.com,
• Automated GUI Testing - Perl.com
• Re: perl library for controlling Windows GUI (like AutoIt)
• Re: Write to WIndows Event Log
• Re: How to get location of Desktop folder on Win32
• Read and write Windows "shortcut" links
• Where is the Win32::OLE Docs
• Using Win32::GuiTest
• WinSpy
• OLESPY
• Win32::OLE - Type Library Browser
• http://www.microsoft.com/com/
• OLE/COM Object Viewer (oleview.exe)
• Scriptomatic 2.0
• #develop
• Office Automation with Perl
• How do I convert a VBA macro to Perl?
• OLE withevents site:perlmonks.org
• Excel Object Model Overview
• href://http://www.roth.net/conference/perl/2000/Perl2000.ppt
• http://www.roth.net/conference/perl/1999/ole.ppt

[marto]

Re: How to continue the execution of a perl script if the user session gets locked while running it.. Do you think it would be wise if the OS responded to user input when the screen was locked? By your logic if you locked your screen someone should be able to press the Windows + R keys, type cmd then format c: /fs:NTFS to format the drive, all while the screen is locked.

Update: fixed typo

[pradeep,krishna]

No buddy. I don't want any user to interact after the system is locked. I just want my automation to continue if the user locks the session in the middle of execution.

[dasgar]

but the thing i am asking is about locked user session not for user who is logged off..

That's the same thing as the 3rd scenario that I listed. In that scenario, all running programs (including GUI-based applications) will continue to run. However, Windows does away with the GUI environment until the user logs back in. With no GUI environment, there is no way (as far as I can tell) to automate interactions with a GUI-based application.

This is something that drove me crazy when I ran into it a few years ago. I ran out of time with what I was working on, so I just accepted that this was a limitation that I had to live with.

marto does have a good point. I had not thought of the situation from that perspective, but it does make sense when I look at it from that view point.