Cory

What about "net stop"

There was some discussion long ago about some of the tray icons not being apparent. First thing I'd say is make sure you are running MEP as an administrator. But if that doesn't work, look back at the posts here about some of the icons not being available in the system tray.

Good luck.

Is the remote machine a VM?

It is strange. I can't think of any reason it wouldn't work remotely. It's difficult for me to help you with this. This is one of those things I'd have to get my hands on to play with.But know that I've written hundreds of macros that run on a remote machine and are accessed via VNC or RDP. Also VNC uses the console session. If you're there, you see it on screen. I've never seen a macro fail like that on a machine I'm accessing via VNC. I think it's unlikely that the remote utilities are to blame. I'm guessing it's something on that remote computer. Maybe some security software. I would try installing ACT on another new machine with nothing else on it and see if it has the same problem.

That sounds like a problem if the whole main area is a control. It's likely a web browser control or a UWP component in an Winform program or a UWP app. Maybe WPF. In any case these are difficult for MEP to control. I've done macros for such apps on several occasions any it was frustrating. I got the feeling that the main form (window) can be focussed, but not the control. You see this sometimes with web browsers. They're active but you have to do something in them like a blind click to activate the component therein. Plex for Windows desktop was like this for me and I finally gave up trying to make macros work reliably. Since it's a chromium control (Chrome web browser rendering engine) I snooped the HTTP requests and learned to do my automation that way. It's not something I recommend for you, I'm just demonstrating how much problem I've had with apps like this in the past and went to extremes without MEP to do the automation.

Something else could be stealing focus. Add a command in there to grab the topmost window title when this runs and display it in a message box. Make sure it's Act. So much simpler using Windows Controls. 🙂 JK.

Hmmmm... Maybe try some <Alt> commands in other applications like notepad? Maybe add before the ALT+i a command a debug to record what window is active? Or maybe a beep. Are you seeing the same problem with VNC?

If you TextType the active control on the focussed window received. One reason I think Windows Control commands are superior is that they don't need to be focussed. In fact the window can even be invisible. By using the Windows Control commands instead, one eliminates all the constant checking to see if the desired window is focused. Also eliminates knowing all the shortcut keys, tabbing order, et al.

If a window goes out of focus, it can't receive input. Only one window at a time can be focused in Windows. I've had this problem often and this is why it's important you ensure the window you want is focused before typing or whatever and not some other window. Also invisible windows can take focus and your window might even look like it has focus when it doesn't. I've known many utilities that are good at invisibly stealing focus. This is why you need to do Windows Activate commands before inputting. You should also scope your macros to the desired window or program to avoid it firing in the wrong application. Both of these topics are covered in the help file.

Please confirm that MEP and the macro is running on the remote machine and not though the RDP connection.

You don't need to be a programmer. I wasn't a programmer when I learned them. It's actually simple. All typical programs have a form. On that form are controls. Controls are, as they imply, things that users control. For the most part, anyway. To define the control it dead simple. ISS even gives you a little utility to pick the control. If I want to get the text from a control, I do a Get Control command and, well, get the text from the control. It takes 2 lines. What's also nice is that you have a built in flow control by adding aits for the controls. Also you're not slave to text typing delays and such. You simply set the controls text. Boom! Done. It does sound like you're using focus. I've mentioned scope and focus but I haven't heard you explain how you'e controlling focus yet. What are you doing. Sorry, I don't have time to read your macro.

And you can manually use CTRL+i on the remote machine? It sounds like your window isn't focused to me. See earlier message. Scope and focus should be set. If you learn to use controls as I suggest, you can use the availability of the control to control flow. That way you can wait for the control to exist before sending text to it. Also it doesn't need to be focussed and you don't need scope. Controls are a little hard to understand at first, but they are much better. Have you considered importing these contacts into ACT instead of using a macro to create them? I don't know yet what you're doping, so it might not be a good suggestion.

You will be even happier with the Windows Controls. There's a tutorial in the sample macros that installed with MEP using Window Calculator. There's a section in the help titled "Controls - Overview. I had trouble understanding for a time but then I learned something that made it all clear. The way I saw it the Get Control command seemed misnamed and it confused me. But when I learned how it works, it makes perfect sense. Windows control shave addresses they can be accessed by and MEP needs the address. But they are inconstant. So the Get Control command finds the control using a set of instructions, kind of like driving directions, to the location of the control then it gives one's control variable that address. If you want to save yourself a lot of time in the next year, learn to use Windows Controls. I'm sorry I don't have time to review your macros right now. I'll try later this afternoon. One question however. How are you handling the focus of the macro? Are you using "Activate Window" to start with? Also what scope have you been using?

FYI it recently changed to Snip & Sketch recently. You might want to upgrade before you do anything else.

First off I've written hundreds of macros, maybe thousands, and I avoid using mouse moves, clicks, and such like the plague. It only breeds troubles. Also I never record macros and I encourage newbies to not go with the "training wheels" approach and learn to write macros without the recorder. Avoid mousing. If you haven't tried it, learn how to use the Windows Controls commands first. For a newbie it's a little challenging to learn, but worth it. I avoided learning them for a long time and when i did I could have shot myself for all the time I wasted not using them. The other thing is I would never develop a macro on a remote machine. I would develop it on a test machine then deploy it to a remote machine. Can you develop it locally?

I sent you a link, it should have explained that there is a command line switch. I checked here and it says the switch is "/console".

You are not connected to the console session. All RDP sessions begin with "rdp". No one is logged into the console. You haven't answered my question. Are you running MEP on the remote machine?

You might also consider using a different remote access application. I had a client that was running 14 computers using MEP to process huge batches of data. We had some problems with RDP so I used an app I've known for many years called VNC. It natively runs in the console session so it's fundamentally different than the way RDP works. But you need to keep the remote machine physically secure as the session will be open and active. I.E. a person could walk up and see what's happening if the monitor is on or move the mouse and mess up a macro.

When RD is running on the serving RD machine you need to understand that the GUI elements stop functioning when the RD client window is disconnected, minimized, and such when it's a "remote session" of Windows. IOW it needs to be an active window on the client machine. One can use Remote Desktop to connect to the console session. The console session is the one you connect to when you're physically in front of the machine. I don't remember why, but I had some problems with that too. But it's much more functional. I only skimmed this article, but it seems ot describe how to do that.

It's not clear if you are, but the first thing is you need to be running MEP on the RD host machine. Are you doing that? It's difficult and nearly impossible to make MEP work though the 'window'' of the Remote Desktop client program.

You should use ASCII Text File Process. Loop though it until you find the row you want then grab the other element of the text array. Sorry, I can't elaborate now, I need to leave shortly.

I don't understand why you don't use the MEP file manipulation commands. It's much easier to conditionally handle exceptions with them. Much faster and more reliable. Since this is the way I handle files, I am not going to be of much help, but I urge you to try and use them instead. When I things that could have a popup error I use the existence of the controls. Let's say that's a "Do you want to continue?" button. I define the control and use "if control exists". And I'd never type in file names, I'd use the controls to enter those values. And here again, checking of the controls exist are useful. What I'm saying is not only can you use the controls to do things, you can also use their existence and value to control the flow of your macro.

Try rebooting. Can you delete it manually using the same account you are operating MEP in? I'll assume you are. You could tr running MEP as an administrator. Next thing I would do is to see if an application has a lock on it using Process Explorer. You're saving a file into a non-user area as defined by Microsoft. Usually this isn't a problem but I wonder if you have any anti-virus software which is blocking MEP's delete action. Some of them are suspicious of processes like MEP because that's how viruses sometimes operate. I would try disabling all security software.

Again, too ugly probably, but this is what I had in mind. See that characters "7" and "8" are your symbols.