Run win32 executable in browser/client ?

I have a intranet website on one of our windows machines that runs apache
2.0 and php5. In the browser, for one particular link on the site, I want to
run a win32 command line program on the client windows machine, (if the
program is there). This command line utility returns a string to standard
output. I want to capture the string and return it to the server and then
process it in some php (compare it to existing records in a mysql database.
and write it if new).
Once I have the string in php I can handle it from there.
I know this isn't strictly a php question, but I hoped someone could give
me pointers as to what techiques I might need to use so I can investigate
further, or suggest a more suitable forum for this problem ? At this point
I'm not even sure what subject this comes under !
Regards
Tony

Re: Run win32 executable in browser/client ?

"Tony B" wrote in
news:eL%ui.85399$tb2.29217@fe02.news.easynews.com:

> I have a intranet website on one of our windows machines that runs
> apache 2.0 and php5. In the browser, for one particular link on the
> site, I want to run a win32 command line program on the client windows
> machine, (if the program is there).

This is not a PHP question, but here goes...

You cannot have access to files (including executable programs!!) on the
client's machine. Surely you can imagine the chaos if websites could
execute files/take documents via the client's browser!!!

That being said, you can probably do it with an Active-X application/plug-
in solutions, but I don't really know much about that.

Re: Run win32 executable in browser/client ?

On Aug 10, 11:55 am, Good Man wrote:
> "Tony B" wrote innews:eL%ui.85399$tb2.29217@fe02.news.easynews.com:
>
> > I have a intranet website on one of our windows machines that runs
> > apache 2.0 and php5. In the browser, for one particular link on the
> > site, I want to run a win32 command line program on the client windows
> > machine, (if the program is there).
>
> This is not a PHP question, but here goes...
>
> You cannot have access to files (including executable programs!!) on the
> client's machine. Surely you can imagine the chaos if websites could
> execute files/take documents via the client's browser!!!
>
> That being said, you can probably do it with an Active-X application/plug-
> in solutions, but I don't really know much about that.

Dont use PHP for thing it was not designed for.

I`d consider 2 ways of solving that problem.
-Mentioned above ActiveX(unfortunately will work only with IE)
-Stand-alone server-client application:
client gathers info you want and sends it to the server which parses
data and writes it to the database.
If you`re not familiar with any programming language, i`d suggest you
www.autoitscript.com. Its free, easy and powerful.

try it ;]

Re: Run win32 executable in browser/client ?

"EF" wrote in message
news:1186765623.759005.111530@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com.. .
> On Aug 10, 11:55 am, Good Man wrote:
>> "Tony B" wrote
>> innews:eL%ui.85399$tb2.29217@fe02.news.easynews.com:
>>
>> > I have a intranet website on one of our windows machines that runs
>> > apache 2.0 and php5. In the browser, for one particular link on the
>> > site, I want to run a win32 command line program on the client windows
>> > machine, (if the program is there).
>>
>> This is not a PHP question, but here goes...
>>
>> You cannot have access to files (including executable programs!!) on the
>> client's machine. Surely you can imagine the chaos if websites could
>> execute files/take documents via the client's browser!!!
>>
>> That being said, you can probably do it with an Active-X
>> application/plug-
>> in solutions, but I don't really know much about that.
>
> Dont use PHP for thing it was not designed for.
>
> I`d consider 2 ways of solving that problem.
> -Mentioned above ActiveX(unfortunately will work only with IE)
> -Stand-alone server-client application:
> client gathers info you want and sends it to the server which parses
> data and writes it to the database.
> If you`re not familiar with any programming language, i`d suggest you
> www.autoitscript.com. Its free, easy and powerful.
>
> try it ;]
Hi I tried a different news server and saw this reply.

The reason I'm running with php/mysql/apache is I'm a little familiar with
it. The rest of the site is fine in p/m/a. I just wanted to see if I could
do this one thing. I could ask the user to run the program and copy the
result into a form etc, but I was hoping to do something that was neater.
I have seen websites that use java/javascript that actually can read the
hard disk, list folders/files etc on the client machine just to show how
much a website could find out about you and your pc !

Thanks
Tony

Re: Run win32 executable in browser/client ?

"Tony B" wrote in
news:lZidnYJjTfKXeFzbnZ2dnUVZ8vednZ2d@pipex.net:

> I have seen websites that use java/javascript that
> actually can read the hard disk, list folders/files etc on the client
> machine just to show how much a website could find out about you and
> your pc !

They use active-x, not javascript, and the only way that it can show you
things about your PC is by you explictly agreeing to install the active-x
plugin.

if they use java (not sure if possible), it would also require explicit
permission from the user before any client-side files were sent back to the
server.

quick answer: no, you cannot do this with PHP.