Maximum PC

Does anybody know if it's possible to write a simple batch file that opens IE to a location and waits for the page to load completely before moving on and doing the same thing to several locations? Or will I need to break out some more complex scripting.

I am limited to IE 6

You can use a batch file to launch an application from the command line.

If you can specify the webpage that explorer will open from the command line, then you can use a batch file to do what you've asked. You may not be able to make it 'wait' (I don't think that batch files are capable of responding to input from an application), but you can simply have the batch file launch multiple instances of IE.

Thanks for the reply.

The waiting part is what I am most concerned about. I basically need to run a scheduled batch job that will cache a few really large pages (between 1mb and 4mb each). I have already written a small commandline program in vb.net that uses the WebClient class to automatically download these pages but since the setup here at work is less than speedy, times out before the bigger files finish.

any ideas would be helpful

I can think of a REALLY easy way to do that in .NET I think... you can launch a process and wait till it finishes... but IE might not report "finished". Or it might just wait till the process closes? I don't know.

hrm... maybe. I am not sure how that would work. Lemme think on it. I don't know that you could do it with a normal batch script... we have a powershell expert around here that might know how to do it with that...

this isn't the most technical solution, but couldn't you just hard code a certain waiting period into your program so there will be a delay before the next webpage opens?

isn't there also a feature in IE6 that allows you to make a webpage available offline? wouldn't that give the same effect as caching it?

Yeah. That is the only way I would know how to do it using a batch file. However, since the time to download varies, taking stabs at the waiting intervals would be unreliable and inefficient at best.

I actually got it to work using .Net with the HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse classes. The WebClient class is just an oversimplification of these two and hides the timeout property. You would think that it's set to unlimited by default. But I guess not...

Previous post by 'Jenni' deleted for violating Rule 15: Astroturfing and shilling.

I was going to mention the old post thing, but this is the kind of resurrection that I don't mind. Even if the OP doesn't need it, somebody else might.