Slashdot Mirror

Windows 7
nearly 10-year-old Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop with SSD
Mozilla Firefox web browser,
AutoIt scripting language,
SciTE and TextPad tabbed text editors with regex support,
IrfanView
FinePrint virtual printer for N-up printing, combining print jobs, univeral print preview, saving without printing, etc.
and VPN client to connect to work.

I fiddled a bit with BASIC growing up, and I took 2 intro C++ courses in university, but I'm not a CS grad, or programmer by trade, but for the past 8 years I've been tinkering with AutoIt for almost all of my programming needs. For better or worse it has a BASIC like structure (though there is no GOTO), and it's purely interpreted, but they make input and output dead simple with MsgBox() and InputBox() commands.

You can scrape data out of, or put data into the clipboard with ease, and you can scrape data out of existing windows, or put data into existing windows. This makes it easy to make a small program that acts as "glue" to automate a real application do something useful. Little by little you can build something more and more complex. I've done TCP programming with it, I got it to scrape data out of a window and create a CSV log where the functionality didn't exist, you can even build real, more complicated GUI's with relative ease.

if the program is written in AutoIt:

AutoIt and Malware

AutoIt already exists. Not that it'll stop you.

They also do not believe anyone has actually been burglarized since discovering this weak spot in security.

Sure, that's believable. It'd be bad if googling 'welkom01' turned up hits on free password sites but that'll probably never happen.

What's particularly humorous is forcing google to not include pages from the last week. One of the first pages is this gem from 2010.

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/topic/118849-import-csv-file-to-add-users-in-ad/

Almost looks like the ISP's admin asking how to make it so new accounts get the right password in a scripted fashion. There are a few other admin type questions on pages asking how to use SAMBA and other cruft that include that password.

I've never thought of basically running multiple local sessions and just having simple hooks to switch between them. You have found a stumbling point of this implementation: no dragging of windows/apps between sessions. Still, it is a solid idea, and I'm always glad to be proven wrong.

The powershell is very, erm, powerful. Much closer to the CLI on other OSes (read: the way a cli should work). The best small app builder that is easy to learn that I have found is called AutoIt (or the derivative AutoHotKey). Both allow completing tasks from quick little hotkey macros up to building simple GUIs in a BASIC-esque form. Too much to hope for something like either of these little beauties to come standard though.

... Does QT still break Autoit? http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/ Or is it maintaining programmer arrogance by preventing the users from using computers to automate complexity ... in essence maintaining the dumb downing of the user base by hiding what computers are for????. I'd imagine the Roman Numeral accountants argued only a fool would think nothing has value, so to maintain their high position in society (re: zero place holder of the Hindu-Arabic decimal system.)

Why is there always something in the way of user ease and simplicity in automation?

http://abstractionphysics.net/

Autoit is a good scripting language. Not too hard yet not to easy since you gotta know, like every other language, what you do. I know almost nothing in programming and I found AutoIT very fun and very good scripting language. Well very good is a wierd term for me since I didn't use other scripting language. From what I read on their forums and their pdf tutorials (available on their forums) is it helps you learn good basic programming behavior from the start.

Autoit is a good scripting language. Not too hard yet not to easy since you gotta know, like every other language, what you do. I know almost nothing in programming and I found AutoIT very fun and very good scripting language. Well very good is a wierd term for me since I didn't use other scripting language. From what I read on their forums and their pdf tutorials (available on their forums) is it helps you learn good basic programming behavior from the start.

Autoit is a good scripting language. Not too hard yet not to easy since you gotta know, like every other language, what you do. I know almost nothing in programming and I found AutoIT very fun and very good scripting language. Well very good is a wierd term for me since I didn't use other scripting language. From what I read on their forums and their pdf tutorials (available on their forums) is it helps you learn good basic programming behavior from the start.

Maybe you should download AutoIT and make a script to automate some of that.

And someone make sure he starts with C++. If he survives that, he won't have any trouble picking up other languages.

I've always been baffled by people who think that C/C++ is a good starting point when you want to learn/teach programming. I think that the most important thing to understand - whether you end up working as a programmer or not - is the basic structure/flow of the program (conditionals, loops, modularity/functions). Then the basic programming concepts (recursion, abstract data types, etc.) and then the libraries/APIs for your platform so that you can actually create something interesting/useful. I don't think that C/C++ offers any advantages over more modern languages in any of these things.

Perhaps advocates of C/C++ for first language think that if you start with a higher level language, the inner workings will forever be a mystery and you just end up using modules you don't understand. I could argue that if you aren't a professional programmer, that doesn't really matter at all but instead I'll argue that you do learn all the important concepts anyways. You can code in Java, PHP or Python and very quickly learn that there is a difference in whether you return a value or a reference to the value. The concept matters, not remembering where to put asterisks and where to put ampersands. ;)

You might say "OK, perhaps C/C++ doesn't offer much advantages but they're still the languages... Why go with something else?" and the answer is pretty simple. If you study C for a week and then get bored / are too busy for a while, etc. you can't really do anything useful with it. There are pretty slim chances that you could, for example, create an application that saves you X amount of work by spending less than X in creating the application. If you spend a week learning PHP, JavaScript, AutoIt or whatever other language is best suitable for the domain of stuff that you're most interested in, you probably can actually use it for something. Also, if you choose a higher level language, the chances are that whether you spend a week or a month, you'll get to delve deeper into database access, networking, algorithms, etc. than you would by choosing C/C++. It's great to possess some basic understanding in those areas, even if you don't end up as a software engineer.

I guess that C/C++ is a good place to start for college kids who're just getting into CS: It's something that professionals probably should understand anyways (even if they don't end up coding in it) so they need to study it at one point or the another and it's easy way to get rid of the "I just like playing XBOX" crowd. For anyone else, I'd probably ask "What kind of stuff do you like to do on computer?" and then try determine what language helps them most in doing that thing.

On Windows, AutoIt is the closest thing I've found to pipes for GUI programs.

It makes it possible to, for example, create a shortcut that a directory of word documents can be dragged onto, which will then produce a zipped directory of appropriately named PDF docs.

Whether this possesses the transcendent beauty of the command line is debatable, but it works, and it's pretty nifty to watch the windows fly around by themselves.

Software development is MUCH easier nowadays.

Depends on what you are trying to do. If you want a BASIC (or BASIC like) program that inputs three numbers as text and then prints the product of those three numbers to the screen - I think that's actually harder today. Although, since Qt and Creator came out, it's starting to reach parity with the TRS-80...

Most of what's relatively easy today was simply impossible then, although, I'd like to see a serious effort put into a "modern" software development kit for the Apple II / Atari 800 / C64 generation of 8bit machines, I bet they were actually capable of a great deal more than they delivered.

I've found AutoIT to be good enough for my limited interest in programming. Simple enough to get it to accept input and display output via msgbox's, or you could dump output to console. Additionally you can make it "do useful stuff" by simply having it drive the GUI in other programs:
http://www.autoitscript.com/site/

I'm sure there are a lot of tools out there that are easier than TRS-80 Basic, but, back in the day, when you powered the machine on, you were booted straight to the program interpreter command line - a hell of a lot easier than tracking down and installing a good tool, it "just worked" ;-)

Software development is MUCH easier nowadays.

Depends on what you are trying to do. If you want a BASIC (or BASIC like) program that inputs three numbers as text and then prints the product of those three numbers to the screen - I think that's actually harder today. Although, since Qt and Creator came out, it's starting to reach parity with the TRS-80...

Most of what's relatively easy today was simply impossible then, although, I'd like to see a serious effort put into a "modern" software development kit for the Apple II / Atari 800 / C64 generation of 8bit machines, I bet they were actually capable of a great deal more than they delivered.

I've found AutoIT to be good enough for my limited interest in programming. Simple enough to get it to accept input and display output via msgbox's, or you could dump output to console. Additionally you can make it "do useful stuff" by simply having it drive the GUI in other programs:
http://www.autoitscript.com/site/

Since I still have to support Windows XP systems, I use what will work with them. I also don't like to have to install any additional run-times. You can accomplish almost anything with a combination of Group Policy and Visual Basic scripts. I would also highly recommended AutoIt, which i find to be a very helpful tool, especially when trying to automate anything that has a GUI. Finally I would note that what you used to MAN, now just look up on MSDN. I just use google as follows: "msdn [terms]".

Mouse click away you say? AutoIt

I prefer *nix too but I have a lot of Microsoft shops that I take care of. AutoIt has saved me a lot of time and effort.

AutoIT gives you the flexibility to make Windows your bitch.

HEX

Have fun automated complex tasks from a GUI.

How about AutoIt?
http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/

Or any number of other GUI automation tools. Did you know that Windows 3.x used to come with one?

Mind you, it's not very flexible. But neither is 'the CLI' without any number of utilities. E.g. grep. Where would the CLI be without grep?

But for automating some complex tasks, it's almost just what the doctor ordered - especially when the thing you want to automate doesn't have any CLI option.

Having read the article, the author's issue seems to be with importing tables. The Linux dude does it via CLI and hey presto, and the Windows dude does it via GUI and hand-enters each individual record and fat-fingers something and screws everything up by the time it goes live.

Ignoring the cheap Linux vs Windows association... this seems like a gripe with a device that -only- has a GUI front-end which, in addition, despite apparently being marketed at enterprise solutions does -not- have a file field with browse button to browse for a table to import.
No offense - but that's not a CLI vs GUI issue. That's a CLI vs BAD GUI issue.

Imagine if the device didn't accept the rule files over the CLI via a file and instead required manual entry, while the GUI version had the file field and browse button. Would he then be praising the GUI?

"Why Paul Venezia sucks, soon to be revisited" as he's bound to make other such comparisons given his obvious bias.

I like AutoIT for GUI scripting: http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.shtml. As well there's AutoHotKey with it's atrocious syntax.

AutoIt is not only a great language to automate any MS Windows based tasks, but also has the best Help file I have EVER seen for any language or framework out there. Then you add the forums on top of that. The forums are a great resource to search through, and also to ask your questions!

I have created an entire testing framework for a previous employer completely written in AutoIt. It allowed them to easily create new test cases without writing any code, and then it allowed them to schedule the test cases to be automatically executed. AutoIt is a very flexible language, and is quick and easy to pick up and learn. I would recommend it over VB or VB.NET as those have a higher learning curve, and I don't feel they can do the same job with the same ease that AutoIt provides.

AutoIt allows you to create simple scripts, or complex GUI Applications. It's your choice. It compiles into a single executable. You can even include files into your executable to be unpacked at runtime to be used. There are so many unique features. A simple AutoIt script is also a little over ~200kb. That's all the overhead. As your script gets more complex that grows, but not significantly. (Unless you add files like I was saying). AutoIt was originally designed to automate tasks across the network, and it needed to be small enough to be able to be sent all over the network without clogging the "pipes". That vision has continued to be maintained.

I wanted to address what someone said above about upgrading to the latest and having some issues with the functions they were using previously. AutoIt is very good at marking changes that have occurred, and they try to not implement things that break previous versions, but as with any living language things do change, and before you upgrade to the latest framework of anything you should always test it first. I understand the frustration...(I had multiple scripts to update as well)...but all that had to be done was a bit of research, and then things would have been much easier.

AutoIt
AutoIt Forums
AutoIt Documentation
AutoIt Downloads

I hope this helps you in your endeavor,
Jarvis

AutoIt is not only a great language to automate any MS Windows based tasks, but also has the best Help file I have EVER seen for any language or framework out there. Then you add the forums on top of that. The forums are a great resource to search through, and also to ask your questions!

I have created an entire testing framework for a previous employer completely written in AutoIt. It allowed them to easily create new test cases without writing any code, and then it allowed them to schedule the test cases to be automatically executed. AutoIt is a very flexible language, and is quick and easy to pick up and learn. I would recommend it over VB or VB.NET as those have a higher learning curve, and I don't feel they can do the same job with the same ease that AutoIt provides.

AutoIt allows you to create simple scripts, or complex GUI Applications. It's your choice. It compiles into a single executable. You can even include files into your executable to be unpacked at runtime to be used. There are so many unique features. A simple AutoIt script is also a little over ~200kb. That's all the overhead. As your script gets more complex that grows, but not significantly. (Unless you add files like I was saying). AutoIt was originally designed to automate tasks across the network, and it needed to be small enough to be able to be sent all over the network without clogging the "pipes". That vision has continued to be maintained.

I wanted to address what someone said above about upgrading to the latest and having some issues with the functions they were using previously. AutoIt is very good at marking changes that have occurred, and they try to not implement things that break previous versions, but as with any living language things do change, and before you upgrade to the latest framework of anything you should always test it first. I understand the frustration...(I had multiple scripts to update as well)...but all that had to be done was a bit of research, and then things would have been much easier.

AutoIt
AutoIt Forums
AutoIt Documentation
AutoIt Downloads

I hope this helps you in your endeavor,
Jarvis

AutoIt is not only a great language to automate any MS Windows based tasks, but also has the best Help file I have EVER seen for any language or framework out there. Then you add the forums on top of that. The forums are a great resource to search through, and also to ask your questions!

I have created an entire testing framework for a previous employer completely written in AutoIt. It allowed them to easily create new test cases without writing any code, and then it allowed them to schedule the test cases to be automatically executed. AutoIt is a very flexible language, and is quick and easy to pick up and learn. I would recommend it over VB or VB.NET as those have a higher learning curve, and I don't feel they can do the same job with the same ease that AutoIt provides.

AutoIt allows you to create simple scripts, or complex GUI Applications. It's your choice. It compiles into a single executable. You can even include files into your executable to be unpacked at runtime to be used. There are so many unique features. A simple AutoIt script is also a little over ~200kb. That's all the overhead. As your script gets more complex that grows, but not significantly. (Unless you add files like I was saying). AutoIt was originally designed to automate tasks across the network, and it needed to be small enough to be able to be sent all over the network without clogging the "pipes". That vision has continued to be maintained.

I wanted to address what someone said above about upgrading to the latest and having some issues with the functions they were using previously. AutoIt is very good at marking changes that have occurred, and they try to not implement things that break previous versions, but as with any living language things do change, and before you upgrade to the latest framework of anything you should always test it first. I understand the frustration...(I had multiple scripts to update as well)...but all that had to be done was a bit of research, and then things would have been much easier.

AutoIt
AutoIt Forums
AutoIt Documentation
AutoIt Downloads

I hope this helps you in your endeavor,
Jarvis

AutoIt is not only a great language to automate any MS Windows based tasks, but also has the best Help file I have EVER seen for any language or framework out there. Then you add the forums on top of that. The forums are a great resource to search through, and also to ask your questions!

I have created an entire testing framework for a previous employer completely written in AutoIt. It allowed them to easily create new test cases without writing any code, and then it allowed them to schedule the test cases to be automatically executed. AutoIt is a very flexible language, and is quick and easy to pick up and learn. I would recommend it over VB or VB.NET as those have a higher learning curve, and I don't feel they can do the same job with the same ease that AutoIt provides.

AutoIt allows you to create simple scripts, or complex GUI Applications. It's your choice. It compiles into a single executable. You can even include files into your executable to be unpacked at runtime to be used. There are so many unique features. A simple AutoIt script is also a little over ~200kb. That's all the overhead. As your script gets more complex that grows, but not significantly. (Unless you add files like I was saying). AutoIt was originally designed to automate tasks across the network, and it needed to be small enough to be able to be sent all over the network without clogging the "pipes". That vision has continued to be maintained.

I wanted to address what someone said above about upgrading to the latest and having some issues with the functions they were using previously. AutoIt is very good at marking changes that have occurred, and they try to not implement things that break previous versions, but as with any living language things do change, and before you upgrade to the latest framework of anything you should always test it first. I understand the frustration...(I had multiple scripts to update as well)...but all that had to be done was a bit of research, and then things would have been much easier.

AutoIt
AutoIt Forums
AutoIt Documentation
AutoIt Downloads

I hope this helps you in your endeavor,
Jarvis

I agree with the parent. Also, if you are just so Anti-Microsoft that you will not touch anything VB (like probably half the readers at Slashdot), check out AutoIT. We use a combination of AutoIT and VB scripts up here where I work, and they get the job done quite well.

http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.shtml

Seconded. I've written a small library for driving command prompt applications in AutoIt.
http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=112372&st=0&p=795177&#entry795177

Its a great tool thats free, and has good GUI and has good scripting capabilities too:

http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/index.shtml

call me when you can script a GUI as easily as a CLI.

http://www.autohotkey.com/
http://www.autoitscript.com/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t0aew7h6(VS.85).aspx
http://archworx.wordpress.com/2006/11/05/how-to-create-a-vista-sidebar-gadget
http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

Your ignorance doesn't change facts.

AutoHotkey has its own free editor with syntax highlighting.

I just checked. My AutoHotkey script is 1,639 lines, 52,140 bytes. That doesn't include the special scripts.

The source code is available, as is a GUI creator.

The AutoHotkey programming language is quirky.

AutoIt has a more standard language. AutoIt is better for complex automated installation scripts, for example. AutoHotkey is better for hotkeys. Both offer compilation of their scripts to .EXE files.

It's an interesting idea, but if you're serious about automating Windows, I heartily recommend AutoIT3. http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/

I did this exact same thing in AutoIt, except that it needs exact matches of images instead of a fuzzy recognizer. (Plus, I also had rule triggers and state vs just a single list of imperative commands)

The fuzzy match is a nice addition, but this automation concept has been available for years.

Eggplant says hi.

As a professional test automator, I'd like to point out that automation by image recognition is the method of last resort. The #1 concern in GUI automation is maintainability, and image recognition is the least maintainable method of automation there is short of recording mouse coordinates and keypresses. If you change your theme, if the developer rearranges the controls, if any text is changed, the script is broken. The idea of using image recognition for web page automation is right out. Web sites change way too often for something like this.

The key to writing maintainable scripts is finding and hooking into the property that is least likely to change. If you're automating Windows Forms .NET apps, you might be able to get the actual variable name. If you're automating web pages you could look at the id or name of the control. You can look at the text of a button or the label of a textbox. You find whatever you can that won't change.

On Windows, use AutoIT if you want something free. There's better commercial tools but they start in the hundreds of dollars and only go up from there.

For web automation, look at watir, WebDriver/Selenium, or WatiN.

On Macs you get these nice tools called AppleScript and Automator. These are made for end users. They don't use the UI, but instead use an interface made just for automation.

If you can at all avoid it, I recommend not using image recognition tools. They're extremely fragile. That said, sometimes it can't be avoided. I'll probably take a look at the source to see if there's anything I can use in those few cases where image recognition is unavoidable.

Or, for a lower tech solution, just get someone else to do it.

Or, for a higher tech one, there's always autoit.

AutoHotkey is a necessity. Open Source, free, but unfortunately no Linux version. Automates keystrokes. Very professionally maintained. The programming language is quirky.

AutoIt makes programs that do automatic installations for examples.

Both can imitate keystrokes and mouse movements.

I suppose you mean to imply that TrueCrypt makes your computer slower. I suppose that may be true, but I haven't noticed it. TrueCrypt seems to be very, very well designed.

Note that there are TrueCrypt versions for both Windows XP and Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux. All are free and open source.

Because my hotkey script contains a password, I've installed AutoHotkey in an encrypted TrueCrypt container. (A TrueCrypt container is either a file or an entire partition.) So, every time I use a hotkey, the system must get it from an encrypted file and be decrypted. I don't notice any difference in speed between that and when AutoHotkey was installed on an unencrypted OS partition.

I've used TrueCrypt for years and had no problems with it. Most software has numerous shortcomings. The biggest problem I can think of now with TrueCrypt is that the documentation doesn't explain the /q command line option very well. That's very minor, a problem not even in the program itself. (Yes, I suggested a re-write in the TrueCrypt forum, and yes, I offered to do the re-writing myself.)

I haven't yet experimented with encrypting the entire OS partition. I have experimented with encrypting an entire data partition; I didn't notice a speed difference. However, I found that it is better not to encrypt data partitions, it is easier to make an encrypted container on the data partition. That's especially true if the container can be the size of one DVD, 4.7 gigabytes, less the space necessary for the unencrypted TrueCrypt software. Then you can just dismount the container and burn a DVD backup of the container file and the TrueCrypt software.

TrueCrypt has been 100% reliable for me. There has never been a hint of a problem that might cause loss of data.

TrueCrypt developers: TrueCrypt is a wonderful gift to the world. Thanks!

My opinion is that it's necessary that encryption software be open source; I would never run proprietary encryption software because of the possibility that some rogue employee installed a back door. Also, the U.S. government believes it can force U.S. commercial companies to install surveillance functions in both hardware and software; executives and employees who disagree can be put in prison secretly. I suppose that isn't done very often, but like everything a government does in secret, there are unintended consequences. One of the consequences is that in some cases it may be considered unsafe to use U.S. products. It isn't only the U.S. banking system that is out of control.

Also, since I mentioned AutoHotkey, I will say that it is excellent, although the programming language is a bit quirky. My main AutoHotkey script is now 1563 lines; I use it a lot. It is Windows only.

AutoHotkey is great for Hotkeys and also open source and free. If you want to run scripts that interact with a Windows GUI as though someone is moving a mouse and typing at a keyboard, then AutoIt is better. AutoHotkey and AutoIt co-exist perfectly. The two had a common origin.

TrueCrypt encrypted containers can be formatted as NTFS or FAT file systems. I haven't tried other file systems. All the Windows file system utilities work perfectly inside TrueCrypt encrypted containers: Windows Explorer, ChkDsk.exe, FsUtil.exe, Format.com, and Defrag.exe. I've found the free open source JkDefrag to be a better defragmenter; it works perfectly inside TrueCrypt containers.

AutoIt is far and away the easiest programming language I've ever used, and also incredibly powerful. The standard functions' syntax are all laid out for you in Scite as you write your code, and it's very forgiving on syntax.

There are countless UDF's and libraries for it, and when you're ready to step up, you can expand it with other DLL's, DCOM, and WMI to do almost anything you want.

Give it a try if you haven't.

JavaScript will give young programmers the immediate feedback that I think many of us found so addictive back in the early days. Lots of comments here talk about "kids these days"; about how they're somehow dumber than us for not jumping into C right away.

But I think we forget: modern computers are extremely complicated. There wasn't much that could go wrong on my old TI (OK, there wasn't much to go right, either, but I digress). How many of you out there have really written something in C? I don't mean something academic, like some command-line thing that sorts randomly-generated numbers into a tree. I mean a program that actually _does_ something. I have, and it's a bitch, let alone getting it to run on both, say, Linux and BSD, which are both, in theory, POSIX.

Kids need feedback. HTML + Javascript gives them that, right away. They can run it anywhere they get a web browser. They don't need a development environment. They don't even need a server! Or makefiles! Or autoconf! And it's fun.

Another language, which is really underappreciated in my mind, is AutoIt! Yeah, it's hodgepodge, and doesn't conform to your paradigm-du-jour, but it will give young programmers some idea of how you put together a GUI app. And heck, it's useful! We use it for all kinds of automation of stupid Windows apps where I work, and it's so damn addictive to play with it makes me forget how much I loathe my Windows machine...

It really is a shame too, because it's definitely the vendors' fault.

I had to write an AutoIt script to prepare some of our teleworkers' computers for logging into our VPN (word from the wise, ask the other people in the department what to do *before* you buy the hardware). Realizing that I'd probably be encountering Vista clients with UAC enabled, I looked up a couple of things to make sure that my script would "play nice" with UAC. Sure, it was extra work, but it wasn't that hard.

Ultimately, I ended up having to require elevation, but not explicitly for the script... I ended up needing it for the third party applications I was installing with it.

I understand you want an all-in-one, however I believe that most "programming" editors can hook into some sort of change management program. I use one locally with my AutoIT3 scripts and the SCiTE editor, every time I compile it asks me for a "changes/reason" and enters that into my own local source management.

SCiTE

SCiTE for AutoIT with screenshots

CVS/SVN wrapper for SCiTE with screenshots and instructions

Jonah HEX

I understand you want an all-in-one, however I believe that most "programming" editors can hook into some sort of change management program. I use one locally with my AutoIT3 scripts and the SCiTE editor, every time I compile it asks me for a "changes/reason" and enters that into my own local source management.

SCiTE

SCiTE for AutoIT with screenshots

CVS/SVN wrapper for SCiTE with screenshots and instructions

Jonah HEX

If my son or daughter asked me this today, I would point him to AutoIt. It is a basic-like open source language that is simple enough to work from the command line(print, input, etc) but complete enough that it can grow into complex applications (windows guis, database access, interacting with other applications using COM). It is an interpreted language, but also includes a compiler. It is written for windows, but could be ported by someone enterprising enough.

One of the really cool things about AutoIt is that it was born as a scripting language to automate simple tasks. It is one thing to be "interested" in programming. As your young programmer gets more comfortable, s/he could use it to write simple bots for WoW, Runescape, etc. Having a program run around and farm gold for you brings programming to a whole new level of coolness. If they aren't into the whole gaming thing, how about using it to control some x-10 stuff?

From one nerd-parent to another,
Good Luck,

The only cracks is the armour are the users, them being the one's that say "Yes, this unsigned potentially dangerous piece of software that inexplicably wants admin rights to my machine can do whatever it wants."

There's a difference between the prompts when the exes are signed or not, for example here - http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/intro/autoit_on_vista.htm

Back when AutoIt was at v2.x it was GPL
Then the developer started to see Commercial forks of their code under different licenses and for pay!

Son with version 3.0, they closed the source but still offer the compiled EXEs for free.

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=142553&cid =11944370

(Windows only clone of Winbatch that worked better)
http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/

1. Use bootcfg to edit boot.ini to add in the safe mode switch - msconfig is your friend to find the switch
2. Add a registry entry to run your script on startup, probably HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce. You need something special in the entry name (maybe "*"? don't remember) to make it run in safe mode.
3. Modify your script to undo the boot.ini change and the registry change
4. Modify your script as per step 7-9
5. Reboot
6. Your script will run
7. Your script will run another command that spawns a child process then exits
8. The child process will wait for the window that says "you're booting into safe mode, click ok to contiune"
9. The child process will click the OK button, wait a minute to let everything settle down, then reboot.

For Microsoft, every software developer is competition, because Microsoft sells both operating systems and user software, in clear violation of any sensible standard of anti-trust. Now that Microsoft is developing online applications, the company is in competition with every IT department, too.

Part of the problem with installing software on Windows is that Microsoft has a monopoly and doesn't want systems to be easily patched. Fixing many issues like that will wait for some new version of Windows Microsoft will sell in the future; that's one of the ways virtual monopolies protect their income, by assuring a necessary product always has failures that can be improved later. (Chevy did that decades ago; that's one reason why Toyota and Datsun are now more popular brands.)

Microsoft has consistently failed to develop good standards and failed to help software developers work by the standards, again part of a monopoly's ignorant adversarial method of maximizing income. Ignorant, because adversarial behavior is self-destructive.

Automate installations with AutoHotKey and AutoIt: We've had some luck getting around quirky install problems by making an installer using AutoIt and AutoHotKey. (The AutoIt link is to the IDE, which is excellent. Install AutoIt and then install the linked package, which after the full installation can be used to update both AutoIt and the IDE at the same time.)

Both AutoHotKey and AutoIt simply simulate pressing the keys and moving the mouse the same way installation of new software is done manually, but according to a script, which is faster and less prone to error than manual installation. In rare cases, AutoHotKey works when AutoIt doesn't, and the opposite is true, too.

Both AutoIt and AutoHotKey are free and mature. AutoHotKey is open source. AutoHotKey is under extremely active and responsive development; there have been 9 new versions since the beginning of 2007 mostly to fix very minor issues recommended by users. Chris Mallett, the developer of AutoHotKey, is a very rare sort of person. He is both an excellent programmer and an excellent writer. It is far easier to get involved with AutoHotKey than with other new programming languages because the documentation is excellent.

We also use AutoHotKey and AutoIt to send a copy of a screen and email it to the IT department when a user presses Windows Key-F11. The software compresses the image first. We like having a record of what a user saw on the screen together with an accurate permanent record of the machine name and time and date.

After countless wipes and rebuilds of my Windows XP Pro OS.... I got tired of installing my applications and tweaking windows to my liking. I'm working (mostly done) on building an unattended install CD (Soon to be DVD/USB Memory Stick/Network Boot...whichever I find most clever). At this point in the game I've got SP2 slipstreamed on the CD, as well as all the critical hotfixes and drivers for my system. I've also configured silent installs for most of my applications. For those applications I am unable to install silently w/ switches I am using http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/ to create scripted installs.

I recommend checking out the guide at http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/ for more information. As well there are many helpful forum trolls to give you advice on issues you might come up against.
It takes a bit of time/effort to get it working. But it is worth it in the end to be able to slip in a CD or a DVD and coming back to a fully functioning system tailored to your liking.

Good luck.

Am I not understanding something? Both AutoHotKey and AutoIt seem to have everything this new program has, including auto-completion and any amount of programmability.

Use the free, open source AutoHotkey to make keyboard shortcuts to run programs and enter text. AutoHotkey is actively developed. Often the AutoHotKey developer, Chris Mallett, releases 3 versions a month to incorporate user's suggestions. (Windows only)

Use AutoIt to simulate keyboard entries and mouse clicks and when you need complicated decision-making. Download AutoIt with the SciTE auto-completion IDE. The SciTE editor makes writing and testing AutoIt programs and compiling the finished results very easy.

Both of these programs are very sophisticated, apparently the best available, come with compilers, and are FREE. Both are completely programmable.

For example, I've written an AutoHotKey program that uses a shortcut to toggle between Windows shortcut keys and WordStar/Brief control-key editing commands. I like to avoid taking the time to touch the mouse.

AutoIt is great for automating installations of software. You can compile all the installation files into the AutoIt file, and have AutoIt set permissions and copy files during the installation.

Both AutoHotKey and AutoIt allow programming your own GUIs.

Both AutoHotKey and AutoIt need an addition: A GUI method of defining keyboard shortcuts, for unskilled users.

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U.S. government violence in Iraq encourages other violence.

Considering applications, I would say both systems are pretty much equivalent these days, I can't think of any application in either Linux or Windows that doesn't have an equivalent in the other system.

Except perhaps the thousands of industry-specific programs that are written for Win32 because "that's what everyone has". Tool and mold shops have automation and cutter-path software that's virtually guaranteed to be Win32 as Irix and Sun have fallen out of popularity due to cost. Insurance companies have quoting and client-management packages that are written for Win32. Banks. Manufacturing. Accounting. Damned-near every industry seems to have at least one must-have application that's Win32 only. Business runs on Win32.

Try to automate any task in Windows, it's a real PITA. Programmers often end doing things through kludges like Excel macros for the lack of a good text-based interface. For instance, let's say you were sent a project that has dozens of directories with thousands of files in it. Let's say you want to rename all *.jpeg files to *.jpg. How would you do that in Windows? In VMS that would be a piece of cake, in a Unix system it's more complicated, for i in *.jpeg; do mv $i `echo $i | sed s/jpeg$/jpg/ - ` ; done or something like that would do it, but the easiest way to do it in Windows that I can think of would be a VB program.

Sadly, the "for" operator has existed in the Win32 shell since WinNT 4.0 which was released July 29th, 1996 according to this cute Wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT Further, it's time to mention that part of the massive staying power of Win32 is that availability of free/cheap utilities to fill pretty much every gap in the as-shipped OS is stunning. Not happy with the Win32 shell? Fine. Throw Kixtart into the mix. http://www.kixtart.org/ Don't like Kixtart? Okay, try 4NT which has a massive scripting language built in. http://www.jpsoft.com/ Want to automate GUI functions? Okay. AutoIT. http://www.autoitscript.com/
But again there are two points here: first, your experience with Win32 seems to be a decade misinformed and two, almost without fail where there's a lack in the Win32 product, there's a cheap or free way to satisfy it. Or, more likely, three or four ways.

Ironically, ease of installation, which is often cited by XP users as an advantage of Windows over Linux, seems to be one of the areas where Linux shines. I have created a standard system configuration script with twenty or so functions, one for each type of application.

Once again a member of the pro-Linux crowd misses the point. Joe Average doesn't even remotely WANT to know how to "create a standard system configuration script". They don't want to know about apt-get or package files. The OS install is the OS install, and Win32's installer only asks a couple of questions, which almost always work if the user accepts defaults. Applications? Virtually always "insert the CD and accept defaults". Grandma can manage that, and she's had two strokes and is suffering from Alzheimer's as well as too much LSD in her earlier years. It doesn't matter at all that us geeks can write install scripts and create pre-built images. Home users and business users don't care. IT managers may, but IT managers have access to deployment packages and desktop management packages such as MOM http://www.microsoft.com/mom/default.mspx.
If Linux wants the desktop, Linux has absolutely got to do things automatically for the user. "Ooops, found a new printer you plugged in... want me to search the Internet for a driver? Okay, found one. Hey lady, you can just print now."

I think being an open and free system is an advantage in that people make it evolve towards what the users prefer, rather than

Imaginary Friendly,

There is a bundle of good advice on this thread, and I really appreciate you posting the question. I am a small IT consultant as well, with some experience with the big guys. What I have found to work wonders is if you can have the computers doing some work for you. Some items that you normally do that eventually get old and tiresome. You mentioned Manual Rollouts, and how that wouldnt really be possible for larger clients. You are correct, but with a little scripting you can have this all done.

I would like to recommend to you and to the /. community; AutoIt (a scripting language) http://www.autoitscript.com/. It was originally created for pc rollouts, but has turned out to be quite a powerful scripting language. I understand you may not have time to learn this language, but if you can do it in your spare time it will eventually save you hours a week, and be able to start being profitable to you and your staff. The community is quite active and willing to help in most any situation.

I would also like to recommend that you find someone who can manage your large accounts for you, and help show you the ropes. Finding a competent person that is willing to teach, and learn.

Also if there is any way I can help as an IT professional let me know.
JS

So to bypass it all a piece of software needs to do is Macro a button -_-'

For example, if I were using a program such as AutoIt, I could create a script to bypass the window like so:

Don't let the Big Bad Macro eat me mummy!