Using WebRecorder with a Remote Desktop

brewman63 · Post by **brewman63** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:17 pm

I have a script that takes me to a remote desktop login session (it is a Windows Server login on a remote ASP) via Internet Explorer. What I would like to know is once I connect to the session can I have WebRecorder record my mouse/keyboard movements and commands so I can create automated process to run on the remote site? I can use WebRecorder to bring up the remote site within it's display page but it doesn't seem to be recording anything I do on that site.

Thanks.

Post by **Marcus Tettmar** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 8:50 pm

No, that won't work. All that is transferred from client to server in these situations is mouse events and keyboard events. You could use Macro Scheduler's macro recorder to record keyboard and mouse events but it will not be able to sense or focus windows within the remote desktop session because it does not know about them. The only way you can do that is to have Macro Scheduler/WebRecorder running locally to the remote machine. That's the only way an application can know about the windows within that environment.

Bob Hansen · Post by **Bob Hansen** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:20 pm

You could make a macro on the remote computer. Then when connected from the primary computer, run the macro on the remote. When that macro is completed, you can disconnect from remote computer.

You could have the primary computer make the connection and execute the remote macro. Have the remote macro last steps transfer a file to a shared location, or send an email to primary computer. When primary computer sees that file or receives that email, then it knows remote macro is done, and it can disconnect and continue as needed.

I do this everynight with a pcAnyWhere connection.

brewman63 · Post by **brewman63** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 2:02 pm

Thanks for the info but I don't think that will help. The remote computer is another company's ASP that we use for hosting our back-office app's and from what I understand having them load "unapproved" applications is not allowed. That's the problem I'm encountering. I want to batch jobs/reports to run on this remote site but I can't find software that will let me do it without loading something on the remote machine.

Post by **Marcus Tettmar** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 2:05 pm

Yes, I'm afraid it's not possible to run batch jobs on a remote machine unless you install said batch processing software on it!

The only thing you CAN do is send mouse and keyboard events via remote desktop i.e. simulate what you'd do manually when using the remote desktop software. But that obvously won't be as reliable as installing Macro Scheduler on the remote machine and having a script run locally to that machine.