Call a program from web

[Anon]

Hi,

Does anyone know how PHP can trigger a Win32 program (something.exe) to run on the desktop/server?

[toma42]

remotely? you can't.

Locally? use backtics.

[Anon]

Thanks.

It seems that the backtics, like exec(), captures the output of a program.

But what I really need is to pop up another local application, such as notepad.exe ... etc.

Any idea?

[brandonschnell]

to open apps on the client side you can use an href like so:
<A HREF="file:///c:/WINNT/notepad.exe">Open Notepad</A> however the user will be prompted to open or to save to disk. also this is OS & platform dependent.

[Anon]

Thanks Brandon.

However, what I need to do is to pop up a local application from the same machine that runs the web site.

Your suggestion is good if I can somehow hide the prompt and open the app directly. Do you have any idea that I can hide the prompt?

[brandonschnell]

depends on the web server.

apache's /cgi-bin/ is setup as a ScriptAlias so you can drop an application into that folder. any hits to an application in that folder will cause the application to run on the web server.

what exactly are you trying to do?

[Anon]

Here is what I am trying to accomplish:

I have a web application running on a stand alone PC with IIS5 & SQL2000. I also have a win32 application that allow me to do some email tracking and marketing works. I want to provide a link on the drop-down menu on the web app to bring up the win32 app.

Any idea how I can do that? Any ideas would help. Thanks.

[brandonschnell]

since its both the client and server use either method.

using the file:/// method will prompt the client to save or to run. but there should be a registry hack out there to always run any .exe applications that are downloaded. of course this isn't recommended for general web browsing.