Tips for using iimRunner

[Tech Support]

This article offers some advanced information for users of the Scripting Interface:

iimRunner allows you to run iMacros very easily under a Windows account that is different from the one that your calling code runs. This methods offers several advantages.

This feature is especially useful when calling iMacros from services, ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, ColdFusion, etc. because these kind of programs run typically under a rather restricted user account.

When you move an application created with iimRunner to a new machine, it is important to make sure that you run iMacros at least once under its iimRunner account, just to make sure you clicked "OK" to all these popups that appear (only) the first time a web browser is started.

A typical symptom if you forget this is a -322 (timeout) or -110 (macro not found) error. For the most likely cause of the -110 error see http://forum.imacros.net/viewtopic.php?p=4212 (issue #4)




If using Windows 2003/2008, make sure that you add the URLs to the IE Enhanced Security configuration or remove this tool. The IE Enhanced Security configuration can be removed under Control Panel > Add/Remove Software > Windows Components

[Tech Support]

To start iimRunner, you can use the Windows task scheduler as shown in http://www.iopus.com/guides/winscheduler.htm



Instead of imacros.exe you need to start iimRunner.exe



Set iimRunner to start as soon as the PC starts. iMacros will under the same account as iimRunner, regardless under which account or under which programming or scripting language the iimInit ("-runner") command is called.

[Tech Support]

About Windows Logon Types:

If you start iMacros or iimRunner form the task scheduler then iMacros starts in the Windows Logon type "Batch mode". This is easy to setup and sufficient for many macros, that do standard form filling and do not trigger dialog boxes.

However, all web browsers (iMacros Browser, IE, Firefox...) and the plugins they use (Flash, PDF, Silverlight,...) are not designed to run in batch mode. They are only tested to work correctly under an interactive user session. And we found that indeed all browsers show "strange" behavior when run in batch mode. Examples of such problems are that some dialog boxes do not display correctly, SAVEAS dialogs might not work, or Flash and PDF addons do not function correctly. You can get problems that are very tricky to debug.

If you encounter such issues, the best way to run iMacros/iimRunner is to start it in an interactive or RemoteInteractive session. Such a session can be established automatically on a Windows Server, so that the interactive session with iimRunner starts with a server reboot. Therefore, using an interactive session has only advantages, except that it is a bit more tricky to setup. Our tech support has a step by step guide and a demo server available.