Using process.start to launch the default program for a file does not allow further control of process - vb.net

I am trying to get my application to launch an MPG file in whatever application the user has set as their default player. I can do this by using:
Dim movie as Process = Process.Start("movie.mpg")
However I also need to know when the user has finished watching the video and has closed the default player application. For this I would normally use movie.HasExited but this returns Object reference not set to instance of object
I'm guessing the cause is that vb does not know what process was launched by windows as a result of opening an MPG file?
If so, how can I get my application to open the default (user defined) media player and still control the process?
Thanks

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App modeller, Identify button not showing up in blueprism spying

I am creating calculator VBO in blueprism object studio.
In application modeller I gave calc.exe path and able to launch calculator, but I am not getting identify option to spy on any element..
In Element, After clicking Launch buttion, identify is appearing for a split of sec and Launch button is coming back instead of Identify
PS- As mentioned in videos and links, I have launched calc via application modeller not directly via windows..
I am using windows 10, BluePrism V.5.0.11.0 versionenter image description here
Windows 10 calculator is complicated case, please consider using different application in your training. For example paint is much simpler to get started.
If you really need to get that going, then you may need to launch application first, using one object, and afterwards use second object to attach and interact with it.
can be two reasons
1. Either your application is not launched properly.
2. Sometimes we face problems with some versions of applications.
The best way to fix your problem is
Edit your settings remove the application path from the navigate stage.
Launch the application separately
Open Navigate stage > Action > Attach
Provide the window title within quotes (example: "Calculator")
Click OK then run the object
Now if you go to application modeller
You will be able to see the identify button under the element.
Hope this will help you.
I resolved this by unchecking "Disable invasive techniques (hooking)".
The Windows 10 calculator runs with process name win32calc which is also located under c:\windows\system32.
So when you launch the application please make you identify the applications process name and its location
I resolved this by circumventing to windows 7 calculator instead of a windows 10 calculator on windows 10.
Link to download win 7 calculator for win 10-
https://winaero.com/download.php?view.1795
This will be installed in the same place as your default calculator.
Inside-
C:\Windows\System32
The name of the app in my case was "calc1.exe" to avoid collisions with the default calculator.
I used this as my base reference app for spying and it worked.
Also note, the hover to highlight button seems to be a bit buggy, try a bit hit and trail to get you required button to be highlighted and mark using "Ctrl+LeftClick"

Sending a command from a web-browser to an app

I want to be able to send a stream of data from a user computer to a web-service. That should not be too hard - I would use an application written in dot-net that resides on a user's Windows computer.
However, the tricky part is that the stream-of-data should only be sent (by the app) when the user clicks on a button or a link in a WEB PAGE that is open in his browser. The app itself would be minimized in the system tray. And he should be able to stop the stream by clicking on a stop-button (or link) in that web page..
So I found some info on stackoverflow that says that you can put a link in your page, something like: [a href='alert:"Hello World" ' ] and if you register your application (in this example the app would be called "alert.exe") in the registry, then when the user clicks on the link, he will cause the application to start, and to receive "Hello World" as a parameter.
Anyway, there are complications in my case. I want to be able to tell the application when to start sending data, and when to stop sending data, without starting new instances of the application. If the user clicks START, and the app is already open, I don't want it to open again. I do want a message to go saying "start sending" and if the user clicks on a STOP button (or link) to say "stop sending". The user might click on these web-page buttons several times in a session, and I don't want to close and reopen the program each time.
So a couple of questions:
Am I taking the right approach? Would "plug-ins" be a better idea?
If I am taking the correct approach, is there some way to send commands from a web page to an application?
Is it safe to have my app modify the registry of user computers?
If so, is there a set of commands for doing that?
Is the registry supported by Windows 7, Windows 8, etc? I know it is not supported on a Mac.
Thanks in advance.
LL
P.S. (the info on launching apps from your browser was at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/aa767914%28v=vs.85%29.aspx).

Compact framework see who uses a file

Is there a way in CF to see which process uses a certain file?
I have an SDF which I want to delete and then overwrite it with another sdf. File.Delete throws an IOException saying file is in use.
I am sure I have closed all DB connections.
AFAIK there is no way to find which process locks a file on WinCE or Windows Mobile.
You should double check if all open connections and references to the sdf files are closed from your code.
As a workaround write another 'updater' app. Then close your main app and start the updater app to replace the sdf file. The updater then could start the main app after the update. You may use named events to sync this: Start new process and wait for 'process started' named event. Then close main app. After update start main app and wait for a named event which states that main app has started, then close updater app.

Windows 8 Set User Account Image

I'm trying to write a small CONSOLE (not metro style) app to quickly change the user account image of the current user to a select image for a setup scrip that I'm running on a bunch of laptops.
They're all Windows 8 and (since it hasn't been out terribly long) I can't find a ton of info on it. I did manage to figure out that you need to use the Windows.System.UserProfile object to do so, but I can't find any documentation on how to do so in a console app.
Thoughts? Suggestions?

Mercury Quick Test Pro and Virtual machines: Works from one client machine but not another

I have a virtual machine (VMware) with Mercury Quick Test Professional 9.2 installed. I have a script to test an application, written in VB.NET using the Infragistics library.
If I access this virtual machine using my laptop (using Remote Desktop), everything works fine, the script completes without a problem. My laptop runs XP, with Windows Classic theme.
If I access this virtual machine using another machine (using Remote Desktop), the script starts fine, but stops halfway through, without no error message from QTP, nothing. This machine runs XP, with Windows Classic theme.
One difference between the two setups is the size of the screen, the laptop is 1920x1280, other machine 1280x1024.
The step where the script stops involves checking a checkbox within an UltraWinGrid. The checkbox itself is displayed, is on the screen in both cases.
Has anyone had this problem before, or have any idea why the behaviour is different between the two machines?
Thanks.
OK. I've found the problem. In fact, the script was failing silently because that's what the person who wrote the script told it to do. It couldn't validate something which was off screen, so the script failed.
The problem was the QTP definition of 'off screen'. I have two screens attached to my laptop, the screen for the laptop itself (1920x1200) and another screen (1280x1024). I connect to the VM for QTP using remote desktop, and it uses the settings of the screen for the laptop. This means that when I launch my QTP script, and move it to the other screen, it doesn't fit, so the screen is no longer maximized, and the object is partially off screen, so can't be found.
The fix is simple: in the Remote Desktop, use the Display tab, and set the size of the screen to a size to 1280x1024, and QTP doesn't have any more problems.
VoilĂ .
If you are not using Expert Mode, and / or are allowing QTP to do most of the work to create your repository objects, then yes it is referencing everything by pixels.
I create all of my repository objects by hand, viewing the source (in the case of automated web-application testing) and using the Object Spy for assistance where needed. I make a point to not have any positioning information as part of my object definition, for the very reason you are running in to.
For the parts of my web-app that interacted with Windows (opening a file to upload, etc.) the Object Spy was essential for the trial and error necessary to create a unique identifier for creating the repository object. But it can be done.
Ex1: File Browse Dialog
text = "Choose file"
nativeclass = #32770 (apparently some Windows VooDoo for a file open dialog?)
Ex2: Filename textbox in Browse dialog:
nativeclass = "Edit"
attached text "File &name:" (more Windows VooDoo? It woudn't work for me without the "&")
Ex3: Open Button in the dialog:
text = "&Open"
object class = "Button"
Good Luck!
Point of clarification: You mentioned that QTP stops with no error message. Does that also mean that the test results log file also has no error message? If the log has any information, that may be helpful in diagnosing the problem. Could you share the lines of code at the point where the script fails?
Also, remote desktop will resize the desktop on the remote machine. Although QTP scripts are not inherently coordinate based, individual statements can be coordinate-based relative to an object. The resolution could be an issue in that regard. For example, imagine you had a line like Button.Click(5, 150) recorded on a higher resolution machine. But if you attempted to play it back on a lower resolution machine, and the 150 is out of bounds of the object on the lower resolution, it could cause an issue.
QTP does not use screen coordinates except as a last resort, if the objects are identified as high level objects (SwfTable in this case) you should be OK, if however QTP doesn't recognise the object it falls back to WinObject and screen coordinates.
If you're using Infragistics then you should know that they extend QTP's support with their TestAdvantage product which will probably solve your issue.
Edit:
#MatthieuF said:
In fact, we use the Infragistics plugin for QTP, and we still have the problem
Can you give me an example of a line that fails?
A few things:
You should be able to debug on the VM easily - just wait for it to stop, go into your object repository, and see if it can identify the object. If no then use object spy to figure out what properties are different between the OSes. If there is a difference then you can always set that property to a regular expression and have it check for both possibilities.
Assuming that isn't the issue we've run into problems using remote desktop with QTP if the Remote window is closed or minimized. For us, it was an issue where the clipboard can not be changed when an RDP window isn't visible, but there could be other surprises when using QTP that way.