How to change registry settings on a system through web browser - javascript

I am trying to develop a web page that will allow user to edit registry settings in windows system. Can i achieve it with client side scripting language.? If yes please suggest me language to do.
Can we do it with jQuery or any other type of library.

Due to obvious security concerns, this is only possible in Internet Explorer(!). This is not a jQuery library, but an activeX control; so it's quite unpleasant to use.
You have been warned, so here is the documentation :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee156602.aspx

Fortunately is impossible to access the registry from a web app: the only way you have is through an ActiveX control but I would not go down this road.
have a look at the below
Access registry from a web aplication

Far from ideal but ...
If you serve up a ".hta" file (HTml Application) from your web server, Windows will run it as a program outside of IE and give it the privileges of the PC user. It will be in a separate window and there won't be any browser features (Back/Refresh/Address bar etc).
Even then, modern versions of Windows will prompt the user with security warnings if a HTA is launched from anywhere other than a local drive.

I know this thread is old, but I am not sure I like any answers for this problem. Instead of trying to access the Registry directly through Javascript, try writing a Java Applet and talk to the java applet using Javascript. Then in the JavaApplet you can write some JNI code to write a native dll to do what you need. It isn't a direct solution to your problem, but it will allow you to do what you need across multiple browsers. The downside is that you can't use it on browsers that do not support running a Java Applet, such as a mobile platform.
This method will also require you to sign your Java Applet. This is how you get around the security issues. The user will have to accept the applet the first time to give the security access.

Related

Run a command on client machine without ActiveX using IE 11 Browser

Would like to run a command/script/exe/bat/shell on client machine using IE 11 Browser without ActiveXObject creation. Since ActiveX is disabled default
please help me to execute a command without ActiveX object creation.
Note: can't go for SSH using PHP
There are only three ways I can think of to do this, none of which I think is likely to work for you:
ActiveX. You've said it's disabled and apparently you can't get it enabled, so that's probably not going to happen.
Write a .Net "no touch deployment" (NTD) application that does the work, roll out an Active Directory security policy allowing that application FullTrust to the target workstations, and have your web page in IE11 link to the application's .exe. Note that NTD is deprecated by Microsoft, but you can still build NTD apps with .Net 2.0. However, I suspect that if you can't get ActiveX enabled in your organization, you won't be able to get the necessary FullTrust permission pushed either.
Write a signed, unsandboxed Java applet, since I think IE11 still supports the obsolete Java plugin (Oracle no longer does, though). But I bet support for the Java plugin is also disabled by default, and of course you'd have to have the Java plugin installed on the target workstations, and writing a signed, unsandboxed Java applet is, again, markedly non-trivial.
I think if you have a legitimate reason for doing this, you're probably going to have to write a script or .exe and get users to download and execute it outside the browser. (It will, of course, be subject to their permissions.)

how to start up a desktop application in client side

In my web page, I have to start a desktop application on the client's computer if it's installed. Any idea how I can do this?
If the application is MS Office or Adobe Reader, I know how to start them, but the application I want to start is a custom application. You can not find it on the internet.
How can I open the application?
Basically it's not possible to achieve unless an application registers a protocol that will trigger it. If it does that all you need to do is to provide a link using this protocol
yourcustomapp://some.parameters
Another way the 3rd party app can integrate with the browser is if it hooks to it as a plugin. This is how flash apps work etc.
If the app you are trying to launch does not support something like that it's going to be close to impossible to achieve what you want.
The browser sandbox prohibits you from executing local resources, for good reason - to thwart a website destroying your box with malicious code. I've been researching the same functionality.
The only solution I've found is to build an extension in Mozilla Firefox which can launch your app. Extensions live outside the sandbox so they can execute local resources. See this page for how to do that. You may be able to do it cross-browser using crossrider, though I haven't had success with that yet.
You could alternatively build a thick client populated from a web service, and launched from the browser through an extension as mentioned above. This is what I'm doing to get around the sandbox. I'm using local XUL for this.
See my question for additional discussion.
First off - you can't do it using javascript in any sort of a portable mechanism.
If the application is ms office or adobe reader,I know how to startup them
No you don't - you know how to send a document, which the browser associates with these applications and invokes them supplying the name of the local copy of the response. You can't just start the programs.
You just need to do the same for your app - invent a new mime type (the major type would be 'application' and by convention, non-standard minor types are prefixed with 'x-', so you might use application/x-hguser) then associate that mimetype with the relevant program browser side.
i.e: You need to explicitly configure each browser
I already encouter that problem in some complex production environnements.
I do the trick using the following code :
function launch(p_app_path)
{
var oShell = new ActiveXObject("WScript.Shell");
oShell.Run('"' + p_app_path + '"', 1);
}
In IE options > Security > Customize the level > ActiveX controls and plugins > Initialization and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe for scripting, set the value to Ask or Active.
It isn't a security problem when your website is enclosed into a specific security context.
And as they say, it's not worth it to build a gas plant.
JavaScript alone can't do this. (No, not even with MS Office or Adobe Reader.) Thankfully.
There are a number of old ways, including using ActiveX, which may work for your needs. As others have pointed out while typing this, you can customize responses based on the mime type or the protocol, etc.
Any way you look at it, you're going to need control over the end users' browser. If you're in a close environment where you can dictate policy (users must use a specific browser, with a specific configuration), then you're going to need to do that. For an open environment with no control over the end users, you're out of luck.
I'm actually having a lot of success right now with SiteFusion. It's a PHP client/server application framework that serves out XUL/JavaScript applications from a server deamon running in Apache. You access applications from a very thin client in XULRunner, or potentially off a web page using extensions. Clients can execute on any platform, and they're outside of the browser sandbox so you can access local resources such as executables. It'a a fairly elegant solution, their website provides great examples and documentation, and their forum is very responsive. I actually found a minor bug in passing arguments to local executables, posted a question about the forum, and it was fixed by the chief developer in under 15 minutes. Very impressive, overall!

Access(read-only) Windows registry from a web-page?

Barring a custom browser-plugin, is there a way to read the Windows registry from a web-page? It sounds like a big security issue but the situation is we have very non-savvy users and we want to have them get some info about their machines for us. Even downloading and running a little app might confuse them, but a web-page that magically gets the info would be fine as they just click a link we send.
Any thoughts on how to do this, or if it's simply impossible, are welcome. Note it is corporate therefore Windows-only and can even be IE-only if needed.
No; you need ActiveX or a plugin.
You can't do it from an ordinary web page.
If it's acceptable to have the user download a file, you can write an HTA -- a standalone web page with access to certain Windows features, including the file system and registry.

Detecting the autoproxy details in Javascript

Is it possible to detect and get proxy server name and port in javascript?
No. The browser proxy settings are not available from JavaScript running in a web page.
Maybe. The browser proxy settings may be available (in some web browsers) from JavaScript running with elevated permissions (for example, a Firefox add-on).
For what it's worth: While you're asking about JavaScript, getting access to the browser proxy settings even from any kind of browser plug-in such as a Flash or Java applet is also not possible, or at the very least not in any reliable or compliant way.
I mention this only because sometimes such plug-ins provide viable workarounds when JavaScript can't do something ... but here I think you are S.O.L.
Perhaps you could tell us a little bit more about what you are trying to accomplish? Maybe there's another way to address your needs.

Can you use the JavaScript engine in web browsers to process local files?

I have a number of users with multi-megabyte files that need to be processed before they can be uploaded. I am trying to find a way to do this without having to install any executable software on their machines.
If every machine shipped with, say, Python it would be easy. I could have a Python script do everything. The only scripting language I can think of that's on every machine is JavaScript. However I know there are security restrictions that prevent reading and writing local files from web browsers.
Is there any way to use this extremely pervasive scripting language for general purpose computing tasks?
EDIT: To clarify the requirements, this needs to be a cross platform, cross browser solution. I believe that HTA is an Internet Explorer only technology (or that the Firefox equivalent is broken).
Would Google Gears work here? Yes, users have to install something, but I think the experience is fairly frictionless. And once it's installed, no more worries.
The application that I maintain and develop for work is an HTML Application or HTA, linked with a SQL Server 2005 backend. This allows various security restrictions to be "avoided". All the client-side components in the application are done with javascript, including writing files to locally mapped network drives and loading data into screens/pages in an AJAXy way.
Perhaps HTA could be helpful for your situation.
For an example of javascript accessing a local file, you might try taking a look at the source of TiddlyWiki, specifically the saveFile, mozillaSaveFile, and ieSaveFile functions. Just click the download link, open the html file it sends you, and search for those functions.
Of course, tiddlywiki is supposed to be used as a local file, not served over the web, so the methods it uses may only work locally.. But it might be a start.
Why not use a flash uploader? http://swfupload.org/
Adobe Flex 4 lets you to open and process a file on a local machine:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/flash/net/FileReference.html#load()
It's not exactly JavaScript, but hope that helps.
I believe you can accomplish this using the HTML5 File API.
It is supported in Opera, IE, Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.
you can use fs module from nodeJS to manipulate with filesystem nowadays!

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