[chef] Re: Re: Re: Re: not so quiet installers

[Adam Edwards < >]

Good question. Docs on sendkeys are below -- their examples use it in
conjunction with appactivate. At least in Win2k8 and above which has real
session isolation, I would expect this should work fine without
interactive logon, but I've never tested it:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8c6yea83%28v=VS.84%29.aspx


Worst case you could use something else to talk to the win api's that can
identify the main window given a process id and then send window messages
such as keystrokes to that window. WMI may actually have methods for some
of these things, otherwise using PowerShell and talking to .net api's
would get you there.

-Adam

On 7/15/13 10:23 AM, "Moser, Kevin" 
<
 >
 wrote:

>Does "SendKeys" require an interactive logon?  If so then you need to be
>careful how you set up your scheduled task or service.  We run our
>chef-client as Local System so interactive logon becomes difficult to
>nonexistent.  
>
>On 7/15/13 8:56 AM, "Adam Edwards" 
><
 >
> wrote:
>
>>Nathaniel, I've heard about a product that allows you to send
>>customizable
>>window messages to installers as a way to "fix" this. I can't remember
>>the
>>product name though.
>>
>>You could probably implement such a solution by hand if needed -- just
>>launch the installer from a vbscript / jscript using wshell and then use
>>"sendkeys" from wscript/wshell to send input to the installer.
>>
>>It's very sad, but if you can't control the quality of the installers you
>>get, this is the best solution that I can think of.
>>
>>-Adam
>>
>>On 7/15/13 6:34 AM, "Nathaniel Eliot" 
>><
 >
>> wrote:
>>
>>>http://www.autohotkey.com/ might fit your need.
>>>
>>>Cheers,
>>>
>>>--
>>>Nathaniel Eliot
>>>T9 Productions
>>>
>>>
>>>On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 7:19 AM, Florian Hehlen
>>><
 >
>>> wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone struggled with windows based installers that cannot run in
>>>>a
>>>> truly quiet mode. I have one old vb6 installer that just hangs because
>>>>it
>>>> can¹t run without user input but it needs a GUI based session! I have
>>>>looked
>>>> at some tools that can convert old installers to MSIs but with little
>>>> success. If it was just the question of manually converting one
>>>>installer I
>>>> would just bite the bullet and do it. But we still have a vendor that
>>>> delivers such crap!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Flo.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>