Detecting if a process is started by IE in protected mode - delphi

I am writing a program that is used for simplifying the download of an application installer. The app is really simple in it's working: it just asks the BITS subsystem to download a ZIP from the net and decompress it on the user's desktop and run the second stage installer (the idea is that many of our end users are too dumb to be trusted with a ZIP download link and instructions on how to install the program).
Now, if a user runs IE 7+ in Vista/7, has UAC enabled and selects "execute" instead of "save as", then the program fails. In fact, all attempts to write to the file system or the registry fails due to IE's protected mode.
In order to work around this, I've tagged the executable to trigger a UAC prompt, which works fine. However, it will now trigger the prompt even if that trigger is unnecessary: the program is designed to do the download in the background and resume downloads if the user closes his session before it is done. Now, the UAC prompt is triggered every time the executable is launched.
I would like to detect the fact that I'm running inside the sandbox and, in that case, restart the process, this time with a UAC prompt (easy enough to do). I don't know how I can detect that situation, however, short of attempting to write to the registry.
Any idea ?

Call the IEIsProtectedModeProcess function.
A good document covering IE's protected mode is Understanding and Working in Protected Mode Internet Explorer.

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Difference in manual execution of running app in background and runAppInBackground() using appium

While executing runAppInBackground() for Android application through Appium the app gets restarted but when executed the same manually couldn't be able to reproduce the same. I Would like to deep dive into implementation of a runAppInBackground() method to reproduce the same issue in a manual way.
You need to look behind the code of runAppInBackground
From java client side (your test code) perspective, it is a single call to Appium server:
POST "/session/:sessionId/appium/app/background"
If you continue looking into where its implemented on server side, you finish with appium-android-driver function.
In short what it does:
Get current activity and package
Press physical Home button
Wait for time you provided as argument (seconds)
Bring up back in focus based on different conditions; from the code you can understand what activity is being started
Basically its a sequence of adb shell commands, that you can run from terminal.
My guess is that step 4 you did manually may differ from what Appium is doing: different activities/arguments for activity been called

access trouble when controlling remote mac with AppleScript

I'm new to all this programming stuff, but trying to learn. I've had moderate success, but feel like it's more accidental than intentional. I'd appreciate help learning and understanding AppleScript in particular and networking, automation and programing in general.
Here's the environment: Almost all Apple with two Minis, a couple of laptops and various iOS devices including an AppleTV. The network consists of an Apple Airport Extreme, and an older D-Link switch I rescued (with permission) from the recycle bin at work. There are three Foscam wi-fi cameras as well. One of the Mini's (named Dora) is acting as a file server running Yosemite and the OS X Server application with a growing RAID 1 array for media storage.
What I’d like to be able to do is to run a single AppleScript from my laptop (Adam’s Macbook) that does the following:
Launch the application iCamSource on Adam’s Macbook
Change “Require Password to Wake” to true on Adam’s Macbook
Quit iTunes on Adam’s Macbook if it’s running
Start the current ScreenSaver locking Adam’s Macbook
Quit iTunes on Dora if it’s running
Start the current ScreenSaver on Dora if it’s not already running thereby locking Dora
I’d also like to have a single script on Adam’s Macbook that reverses these actions.
I have been able to launch iCamSource, set “Require Password to Wake” to true and start the ScreenSaver on Adam’s Macbook with a lot of Google-Fu, much trial and error, and quite a bit of frustration. I’ve not yet tried to quit iTunes if it’s running. That’s a new idea/requirement, but I think it should be pretty simple to add to the functioning script.
Where I’m running into trouble is controlling Dora from a script on Adam’s Macbook. I run into access errors (905 and 927 generally) about half to two thirds of the time I run the script. I’ve tried every syntax option and many combinations of syntax that I found via Google searches, but this is the one that has the most (but still inconsistent) success.
set remoteMachine to "eppc://remoteMachineadam:slajdlll#10.0.1.2"
tell application "iTunes" of machine remoteMachine
quit
end tell
When reading various articles explaining how to do this, sometimes the scripts use eppc, others use epps and I’ve not seen a consistent result with either one. Some of the articles use the actual IP address of the remote machine, others use password#name.local, so that syntax would be slajdlll#dora.local. That change also seems inconsistent in its results.
This seems to be a pretty basic task, and I’ve found lots of articles that do this very thing, but their methods don’t work in my environment. Many of the articles I’ve read are quite old, so the syntax may be out of date. I’m kind of at my wits end, but feel I should be able to make this work. Any help y’all could provide would be VERY appreciated.
Update - I had the scripts working last night in all regards except controlling the remote machine. This morning, I tried to open the "Away" script to again tackle the remote control issue and I get a Syntax Error Unable To Authenticate User message and the script won't compile. Here's the code:
tell application "System Events"
try
tell application "iTunes" to quit
end try
try
tell application "iTunes" of machine "eppc://Dora.local" to quit
end try
tell security preferences
set require password to wake to true
tell application "iCamSource" to activate
tell application "System Events" to start current screen saver
end tell
end tell
Both "Away" and "Home" scripts run from the AppleScript menu. When I unlock the ScreenSaver after running the "Away" script I get a dialog box stating "There was a problem connecting to the server "Dora's Airport Extreme. The share does not exist on the server. Please check the share name, and then try again." I'm beginning to think I may have a Permissions error on one or more of the machines, or if there's another problem that's making the scripts act inconsistently.
Thanks for all the help so far!
UPDATE Ok, it seems that there was a problem with iPhoto and Screen Saver interacting with the files on the networked hard drive. Opening iPhoto and slowly opening each image and re-linking those that had lost their location seems to have solved that problem. I am still encountering the access error code 905. In order to troubleshoot this process, I'm stripping the script down to one task, to quit iTunes on the remote machine named "Dora" Here's the code:
set Dora to "epps://adam:slajdlll#10.0.1.2"
try
tell application "iTunes" of machine Dora to quit
end try
Here's the event log that running that script generates:
tell application "iTunes" of machine "eppc://epps/adam%253kslajdlll%4010.0.1.2.local"
quit
--> error number -905
end tell
Is it possible/probable that the OS X Server application is mis-configured and is preventing the script from controlling the remote machine? Any other thoughts or things to try?
Thanks!
UPDATE 2
In the Groups section of the OS X Server application running on the remote machine, I found that there is a group called Apple Remote Events ACL. When I click the Edit button to view it's settings I see the actual account name is "com.apple.access_remote_ae-disabled". I wonder if this is telling us something. I searched several libraries for "com.apple.access" thinking it may be something that could be edited, but found nothing. I'm a member of that group. I tried removing myself from the group and tried the script with no change in the results so I added myself back into it.
UPDATE 3
As suggested I'm trying to eliminate OSX Server from the equation. To do this I'm going to try to launch TextEdit (since it's faster to launch than iTunes) on a third machine, known as Office Mini that does not have the Server application on it. Here's the script:
set OfficeMini to "eppc://10.0.1.196"
try
tell application "System Events" of machine OfficeMini
open "/Applications/TextEdit.app"
end tell
end try
When I ran the script initially I got two dialog boxes asking for username and password. I supplied them and checked the "Save in Keychain" checkbox. The script didn't open TextEdit, but I'm not getting the access errors. I am getting different errors though, -600 or -10010 depending on if I use System Events or the Finder. Using the list on this page: Nicholas Reilingh AppleScript Error Codes I find that with System Events I get an error -600 which means the application isn't running. That's no surprise, I'm trying to open it. When I use the Finder instead of System Events, I get an error -10010 which the list indicates is "Handler can’t handle objects of this class." So, there's progress, but I'm still stumped.
UPDATE 4 To further clarify/simplify, I tried running a simple script to open iTunes on the Office Mini locally on that machine and it worked fine.
tell application "iTunes" to activate
Substituting the "quit" for "activate", and trying this syntax with several different applications all worked quite well and very fast. I tried the same script and variations on the Dora machine with the same, successful results.
I then tried to make that syntax work remotely with this code:
set OfficeMini to "eppc://10.0.1.196"
tell application "iTunes" of machine OfficeMini to quit
I got this error message in the event log:
tell application "iTunes" of machine "eppc://10.0.1.196"
quit
--> error number -927
Result:
error "iTunes got an error: Unable to authenticate user." number -927
So, since OSX Server isn't running on the Office Mini, this seems to eliminate that as a culprit for the error. I tried altering the code with another variant I saw online that uses "epps" in place of "eppc" which results in a similar error message: "iTunes got an error: Remote access isn’t allowed." number -905. I did not get dialog boxes requesting credentials. When I've seen the "epps" string used online, it was formatted as "epps://username:password#location" so I used "epps://adam:slajdlll#10.0.1.196" and received the same error message. I even tried "Adam" in place of "adam" with no change in the results.
Yes, step 1 is to try to make your script as simple as possible to narrow down the point of failure.
I have copied your minimal script onto my machine & gotten it to work:
set Dora to "minipuppy.local"
try
tell application "iTunes" of machine Dora to quit
end try
A few notes:
I used "minipuppy.local" (the Bonjour linklocal name) rather than your eppc stuff, because I know what the former is, but not the latter. (You can get the link local name from the Sharing prefs panel* where it says "Computers on your local network can access your computer at:XXXXX"
An authentication dialog popped up saying that I needed to enter the username and password for the target machine - but it did have
an eppc address in the dialog (I didn't take a screenshot :-( )
After entering the username/password my script did nothing. Interestingly, I could not get it to print out a log as yours has?
I fixed this by going to the target Mac's System Preferences & enabling "Remote Apple Events" in the Sharing panel*. After turning that on, my script worked.
I'm hoping enabling "Remote Apple Events" is the ultimate solution to your simplified problem.
*Apple Menu -> System Preferences -> Sharing

Forcing a Windows service to fail

Whenever a specific Windows service fails I want to run a program I've created myself. However, I simply can't find a way to make it fail on purpose, so that I can actually test that everything works correctly.
Note that the service in question is not something I've written myself, so I can't make it fail programmatically from inside the code. I wouldn't, however, mind writing a program that can make a service fail.
Of course I would prefer just having a "Make service fail" button somewhere in services.msc ... ;)
The server I'm doing this on is running Windows Server 2012.
If you don't want to use command line :
As an admin open the Windows Task Manager, in the Services tab find the service you want to test. Right click the service and click on Go to process. The selected process (if any) is the one corresponding to your service. Kill this process to simulate a service failure.
Be aware that killing a process this way can lead to problems.
Define "fail". If you want the process to end, just use pskill or a similar tool that can terminate a process elevated (as an admin).

How do I do an http request upon successful Inno Setup install, for tracking purposes?

When my program successfully installs via Inno Setup, how do I run a URL in the background? I want to just load a tracking pixel (or a postback) which says that my program was installed.
I'm aware than in the [Run] section, I can run a .url file with the flag "runhidden", but as far as I know that won't do what I need it to. Am I wrong about that, or are there better option?
Thank you.
There is no TCP/IP related Support Functions, defined by default.
You could build this functionality into a DLL and call it from you Install Script.
This is done installation's where Activation is required to make the program work.
However, I would just launch a browser window using the [Run] section that contains "Getting Started" information. You can then track hits to that page.

How to profile an ASP.NET web service on a remote server by EQATEC profiler?

I am thinking the modified dlls will create a log file some where in the remote system so I can open it later after load test but all I found was a log file in $(SystemRoot)\Temp\EQATECProfilerLogs saying nothing other than app started. Do I need to install EQATEC profiler on the remote server?
Thanks
This scenario is adressed in this EQATEC forum thread:
A profiled app needs to be told when we want it to produce its profiling report. For plain apps this is simple and has therefore been automated: when Main exits. But your web-service has no similar "exit point" - it just keeps on running until you kill it.
Therefore you have to explicitly/manually tell the profiled web-service to take a snapshot. The easiest way is to simply run the profiler on the same machine as the web-service is running on: when the web-service is starting up it will automatically connect to the profiler and you can then run your tests and control/dump timing info at will using the "take snapshot" and "clear counters"-buttons.
Alternatively, you can make a reference to the supplied runtime-module from within your code and make explicit calls to the API (TakeSnapshot etc) precisely where you want in your code. The runtime-modules reside in C:\Program Files\EQATEC\EQATECProfiler\RuntimeDLL.

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