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Board index FiveWin for Harbour/xHarbour Run an executable from a web link
Posts: 2706
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 01:50 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:15 AM

To All

I am working on an application that needs to run from our internal intranet .. meaning that when a user clicks on an html link .. my program will run .. from a unc \server\volume\folder\my.exe

Our Web master is having difficulty in getting a web link to run my ( external ) program. The executable is on the web server .. just having difficulty launching the program from a web link.

Any Ideas ?? vb script ??

Rick Lipkin
SC Dept of Healch, USA

Posts: 408
Joined: Sun Aug 13, 2006 05:38 AM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 06:03 AM

occurs itself me download a bat with the line

\server\volume\folder\my.exe

when the user click in the link http://server/runProgram.bat it download and the user select run it.

Saludos

Quique
Posts: 464
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 07:47 AM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:22 PM

Hi Rick

My initial reaction was that this would constitute a huge security risk and probably should be impossible (although it would be very handy).

However its exactly what "mail to" does, although that's presumably a specially hard coded feature.

To do it you (apparently) need to run an ActiveX control (assuming a Windows platform) to handle the launching (and by its setp deal with the very real sceurity issues involved). See:

http://www.whirlywiryweb.com/article.as ... launchinie

You could of course write your own ActiveX control that did the necessary work but that sounds rather difficult to me, so I hope that the above works for you.

Regards
Doug
(xProgrammer)

Posts: 464
Joined: Tue May 16, 2006 07:47 AM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:50 PM

The only Linux / Windows solution I can see is to run Mozilla use XUL and install Chrome URLs which have special privileges with respect to local access - but this is all technology new to me (and most people I suspect) and I have absolutley no knowledge of or experience in such environments at present.

Regards
Doug
(xProgrammer)

Posts: 2706
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 01:50 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 01:13 PM

BUMMER ... I would think putting a link to an executable on an intranet page would be simple .. obviously this is a major head-ache ..

Rick

Posts: 83
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2005 10:33 AM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 06:57 PM

I'm using html.lib provides by xHarbour.or and do this in a form

DEFINE FORM oForm NAME "PDFDownload" ;
COLOR "WHITE" ;
WIDTH 60 ;
ACTION "/cgi-bin/dodown.exe"

The same can be done with a link.
Is this what you are looking for?

Dietmar

Posts: 300
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:06 AM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 09:23 PM

I have the same situation .
I have an exe application in a shared directory (server)
I have a short cut to my Exe .
Our web master has establish a link to this shost cut and it works .

It suppose that the user has good access right to the shared directory and that he has a network drive mapped to the server .

Hope that it could help you .

Posts: 663
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:22 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:10 PM

I like the idea of OLE also. I know you can do it with xHarbour.com. Make a ole server register it on the server and use vbscript, java, or xbsript to access it.

Posts: 2706
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 01:50 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 11:35 PM

To All

YES ... we have it working ... I will have to give everyone the html .. our web master told me he ( basically ) is calling the program .exe from a unc ..

We do get some security warning from IE .. but just RUN and OK .. and the program executes.

One thing that makes my setup easy is that I am using ADO to connect to an external MS Sql server .. no .dbf or indexes to worry about .. just have one executabe and the prev32.dll to worry about publishing.

Rick

Posts: 2706
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 01:50 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 01:52 AM

As promised .. here is the html:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head>
<title>PMO Project</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1 align=center>PMO Project</h1>
<br>
<p align=center><a href="\webdev\pmo\pmow32.exe">PMO</a></p>
</body>
</html>

Rick Lipkin

Posts: 44158
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 05:47 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 08:31 AM

Rick,

Thats the way FWH users download the files from the FiveTech website (using login and password) :-)

regards, saludos

Antonio Linares
www.fivetechsoft.com
Posts: 2706
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 01:50 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 01:08 PM

Antonio

YES .. when you click on the link you get the option to RUN or DOWNLOAD .. when you click RUN .. you get one last security warning .. and then the application executes and runs .. a bit clumsy but it works.

You have to remember, this is being launched within our intranet and behind our corporate firewall .. there are no logins and the link is available to everyone.. (5k potential users )

Copying the executable to all 300 plus servers or presenting this with 'thin client' via Citrix was not where I wanted to go with the distribution.

If any scripting guru's have a way to get around the RUN or DOWNLOAD option .. ( perhaps a vb script ??) .. please chime in here !!

Rick

Posts: 729
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 06:49 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:56 AM

Hi Rick,

I have some question regarding xHarbour + FWH application running through IE browser to connect an intranet server.

Do you have any update regarding this topic?
I mean if you were able to skip the RUN/DOWNLOAD issue.

Is your application developed with [x}Harbour + FWH?
It's working OK?
Do you have any other issue other than connectivity?
How is the speed? Are you using DBF, ADT or SQL database?

Any other information/experiences that you want to shared with us?

Regards

George

Posts: 2706
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 01:50 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:34 AM

George

The run/download is normal Explorer behavoir and is something I just tell users to deal with

My application is xHarbour and FWH 8.11 and the application is running flawlessly

I am connecting to a MS Sql database using xHarbours TOleAuto() class via ADO and OLEDB. This is why all I need is just the executable. The connection string is burned into the exe and tables are external to the application.

Speed is great .. it is running on our Agency's IntRanet.. all is well !!

Rick Lipkin

Posts: 729
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2005 06:49 PM
Run an executable from a web link
Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2008 06:55 PM
Hi Rick,
Great to know that everything is working fine.

In summary as I understand:
1. The application and database is in server (intranet)
2. The user access the software by IE browser with following code.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" > 
<head> 
<title>PMO Project</title> 
</head> 
<body> 
<h1 align=center>PMO Project</h1> 
<br> 
<p align=center><a href="\\webdev\pmo\pmow32.exe">PMO</a></p> 
</body> 
</html>


A final question:
Is possible to use a normal internet connection or we need VPN/Citrix to connect to the intranet server for this type of application?


George