dirtymafia Posted March 28, 2006 Share Posted March 28, 2006 I am in the process of, and almost completed with, the creation of a utility that will allow you to punch in the UNC path, the target EXE name, specify any command line arguments to be used (ie /noeula, /unattend:t2, etc) and the credentials(domain or local) for autopatcher to be ran as. This is in response to my problem of running Autopatcher from a network share with a higher level (administrator) of access than what the user that will be logged into the computer has. I was going to use batch file to accomplish this, but it ended up that I needed like 3 batch files to get the job done. That wouldn't have been that bad, I guess, but then you have to factor in that a batch file is basically a plain text document and if I'm going to be using this method my password would need to be piped in somehow, most likely in plain text. Some of you might come back with the argument to use CPAU because you can encode a file and then run that file..I just don't like that method, I want to keep everything simple and just have 1 EXE file that is involved with invoking Autopatcher. So after exhausting several different methods I decided to just write the EXE myself. In case anyone wants to know how the EXE utility works here goes: A gui will pop up asking you for the following information(defaults given in parenthesis): UNC Path (blank) Autopatcher EXE: (autopatcher.exe) command line arguments: This is not an open edit box; instead there are checkboxes for /noeula and /noreboot, etc and then a drop down for unattend:t1/unattend:t2/unattend:t3. All command line arguments listed on this forum will be available. Credentials:Username (username), Domain (blank=local computer), and Password. After all that information is supplied then there is a 'create EXE' button, which after pressing will give you a prompt of where to save the resulting EXE . Pressing the create button does the following: Takes all your data and creates a temp file (located in same dir as utility) and then compiles that as an EXE in the place you have chosen, then deletes the temp file. The actual process of "running" the autopatcher.exe (or whatever target EXE you input) will be done with the following lines (which will be created from your created EXE file) pushd UNCPATH autopatcher.exe /noeula /unattend:t2 (or whatever command line options you choose) popd All of that will be run under the credentials you specify. One thing concerning the compiled EXE: The end result compiled exe (which you create by hitting 'create EXE' is not heavily encoded and could be compromised if someone had the capability to de-compile the exe and grab it out. Of course it is still MUCH more secure than a plain text batch file. In my company this is not a problem, I actually probably would have been safe with a batch file since most users are not very Knowledgeable of programming and the like. I will make this utility available here when finished if anyone is interested in it. If you have any other questions or ideas let me know by making a reply post. I hope more than myself will find this utility useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+theblazingangel MVC Posted March 28, 2006 MVC Share Posted March 28, 2006 (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtymafia Posted March 31, 2006 Author Share Posted March 31, 2006 Here is a screenshot of the current progress http://img398.imageshack.us/my.php?image=a...rutility5xo.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+theblazingangel MVC Posted April 5, 2006 MVC Share Posted April 5, 2006 looks good (Y), i cant test/use it myself, but im sure it will be useful to a lot of people ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdsa Posted April 6, 2006 Share Posted April 6, 2006 Hi there This would be a very good tool i can't wait to try it out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dennis_HR Posted May 17, 2006 Share Posted May 17, 2006 I am very interested in this tool too.It would help a lot trying to fix all windows machines in my network.Hope everything will be done as planned.Keep up the good work.Greetings from Croatia ! :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephenm00 Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 Is there any update on this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGabriele Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 Look great ... have a release date yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGabriele Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 Thanks to +M2Ys4U for pointing this out bit of code to easily map then un-map a UNC path Can't seem to refined the thread to give author credit ... will look again later Autopatcher will only run from a mapped drive from a network share. I used pushd and popd to temporarily map a drive and run autopatcher in between. Threw it into a batch file, and with CMDOW the cmd window calling the batch can even be hidden. My batch is as follows: ---------------------------- @copy /y \\servername\autopatcher\cmdow.exe %systemroot%\system32\cmdow.exe @cmdow @ /hid pushd \\servername\autopatcher autopatcher.exe /noeula /unattend:t2 popd \\servername\autopatcher ---------------------------- Of course, the /noeula prevents having to accept the eula, and the unattend:t2 completes the unattended aspect with just a small notification window. You could also use t3 to make it completely invisible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹ Posted July 3, 2006 Subscriber¹ Share Posted July 3, 2006 Thanks to +M2Ys4U for pointing this out bit of code to easily map then un-map a UNC path Can't seem to refined the thread to give author credit ... will look again later That would be rtk and in this thread :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGabriele Posted July 4, 2006 Share Posted July 4, 2006 ^ thanks +M2Ys4U 2nd time for finding that tread fro me ... I needed that! It seems that dirtymafia went to some trouble to create the utility he was working but has never come back Since rtk found a different work around I'm happy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtymafia Posted October 31, 2006 Author Share Posted October 31, 2006 ^ thanks +M2Ys4U 2nd time for finding that tread fro me ... I needed that! It seems that dirtymafia went to some trouble to create the utility he was working but has never come back Since rtk found a different work around I'm happy! Yeah got really busy with some other stuff and completly pushed this off. Now I have no idea where the code went..If I ever find it again I will finish this out. Mine was a bit more robust than the fix that's out there..and hopefully I can find the code again.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtymafia Posted October 31, 2006 Author Share Posted October 31, 2006 Yeah got really busy with some other stuff and completly pushed this off. Now I have no idea where the code went..If I ever find it again I will finish this out. Mine was a bit more robust than the fix that's out there..and hopefully I can find the code again.. Alright, found the code...Have started to finish it. I plan on having a version out by the end of the week. I would love if some of you would be willing to work with it and let me know about any bugs. I will create a new thread on here when it is completed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtk Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Alright, found the code...Have started to finish it. I plan on having a version out by the end of the week. I would love if some of you would be willing to work with it and let me know about any bugs. I will create a new thread on here when it is completed. I'm using the workaround I posted way back when, daily on 300+ machines. I'd be happy to help test and whatnot, but I'm no coder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtymafia Posted November 1, 2006 Author Share Posted November 1, 2006 I'm using the workaround I posted way back when, daily on 300+ machines. I'd be happy to help test and whatnot, but I'm no coder. Alright, cool, got one tester on board. I don't need coding or anything I just need to know of bugs / things that would make it better. So far since yesterday I have added the ability to save defaults (loaded when program starts) and to also save settings to a file and load them back from the file. This way if you have to make more than 1 exe runner, or whatever, you can just load up what you had before, or just use the 'defaults' if that's what you use everytime. I'm making a little help file to be included with it right now. I'm looking at thursday/friday to post it on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dutch2005 Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 nice very nice.. any ETA on finish? placing it on a network share would be awesome! :), if we have a pc that is out dated just run the tool form the network and voila, its rdy to go after updates...(and it saves harddisk space since only 1 place needs to have it...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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