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General discussion

run a program from a site

Mar 15, 2008 5:05AM PDT

I have a site on the net and I want to run a program on my computer linking a link on my site. In other words,Is there a way to click on a link on a site and a program(already installed on my pc) runs?

Discussion is locked

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Can you tell why you want it.
Mar 15, 2008 6:39AM PDT

It's a rather uncommon requirement.

Kees

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want to continue have sex
Mar 15, 2008 9:49AM PDT

Yes , It is. The problem is that my wife, who is a newbie in pc, is bothering me with questions like "How do I run that program?" "What's a shortcut?" "Why can't you help me now? " "I've found out that you've got no patience at all!"

So I'm going to build a site where she can have all links like yahoo, gmail and hotmail and also shortcuts to run programs already installed on her machine. That's why I'm asking for help.
Maybe a javascript could work. I dont know.

Any help would be great.

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Re: shortcuts
Mar 16, 2008 4:39AM PDT

You can do that perfectly well locally. Three ways:
1. Start>Programs is a logical (and easy to organize) way to have shortcuts bot to running programs and to url's.
2. Put the shortcuts and links on her desktop, either directly or in folders.
3. Make a local html-page with all the links you know think to put on a website. Then make that the homepage in her browser. There's no need at all to put it on a server with your ISP.

Hope this helps.


Kees

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ok
Mar 20, 2008 4:01AM PDT

Thanks for your help.

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depends on your browser
Mar 26, 2008 5:57PM PDT

If you are using IE, and you add the site to your 'local computer' security zone, then yes it can launch applications on your computer. Be warned, if your site is compromised in any way very bad things can happen.

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CGI
May 17, 2008 12:25AM PDT

A more secure way would be to use a CGI script on a password protected domain - make the script run any commands when you click the links. The CGI could be Perl, PHP or Python (my preferred). You will probably need to have your home PC running as a server though, which may be a pain. Have you tried Remote Desktop? Its pretty good, and maybe quicker and more flexible if you put shortcuts on the desktop.

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This might be more difficult
May 26, 2008 4:14PM PDT

then dealing with your wife. Grin

You might consider using note pad to create a "helpful links" page for her then possibly do some scripting to task manager to run the programs you want in the OS.

The security issue raised here should be seriously considered.

There might also be some restriction implied by the web host that will keep you from doing this. In effect you'll be networking with them.

This thread is untracked.