Managing IE

PowerShell Help
1

I need to use PowerShell to capture the F12 application code/logs for diagnosis purposes from IE and can easily do this with the following code:

>> $oIE=new-object -com internetexplorer.application
>> $oIE.Visible = $true
>> $oIE.navigate2(“microsoft.com”)
>> $oIE.Document.documentElement | out-file -filepath(“c:\users\antho\desktop\IE.txt”)

But I then need to be able to do this on a system where I did not start IE, and need to find which browser is pointing to the site I am interested in.

I know I can find IE with the following:

PS C:\Windows\system32> get-process iexplore

Handles NPM(K) PM(K) WS(K) VM(M) CPU(s) Id SI ProcessNa

634      43    13524      43236 ...53     4.13  12424   4 iexplore
824      54    53824      71488   474   243.27  74916   4 iexplore
934      59    76052      96608   491    98.11 131556   4 iexplore

However I then want to be able to test each iexplore to see which one is running the web session I am interested in.

I know that I can use $oIE.document.documentElement from above, but what I don’t know is how to do this with the three iexplore sessions that I just identified. Ideally I want to be able to test each of the domains or web address and then grab the .documentElement for that browser.

I have spent a couple of days trying to crack this I seem to be running in circles.

Any pointers here would be fabulous.

2

It’s a tricky problem. The System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal class has a GetActiveObject() method ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.runtime.interopservices.marshal.getactiveobject(v=vs.100).aspx ), but it will only return the first instance found. COM has something called the running object table that you can use to manage multiple instances, but there’s no easy way to do that built into .NET already, and a quick web search seems to indicate that people are having problems with the ROT giving you back the same instance when they’re trying to do something similar to what you’re describing: Accessing COM applications from the Running Object Table - AutoCAD DevBlog

3

A follow-on question

  1. Does the HWND window handle of the l current Internet Explorer window match any of the properties in get-process.

Thanks

4

Either option should work for you, but I noticed the size of each text file was inconsistent when testing each address multiple times.

# ComObject Method
$addresses = "www.microsoft.com
www.google.com
www.powershell.org" -split "`n"

# Get all open shell windows
$app = New-Object -ComObject 'shell.application'

# Export each documentElement
foreach ($address in $addresses){
    $ie = New-Object -ComObject 'InternetExplorer.Application'
    $ie.navigate($address)
    $ie.visible = $true
    while ($ie.Busy){Start-Sleep -Seconds 2}
    [void]($address -match "\.(?'name'.*)\.") ; $name = $Matches['name']
    $window = $app.windows() | Where-Object {
        $_.Name -eq 'Internet Explorer' -AND $_.LocationURL -like "*$name*"}
    $window.Document.documentElement | Out-File ".\Desktop\test\$address.txt"
    $window.Quit()
}

# Invoke-WebRequest Method
foreach ($address in $addresses){
    $useragent = '([Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.PSUserAgent]::InternetExplorer)'
    $request = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $address -UserAgent $useragent
    $request.ParsedHtml.documentElement | Out-File ".\Desktop\test\$address.txt"

$app = New-Object -ComObject 'shell.application'
$handles = (Get-Process -Name iexplore).MainWindowHandle
foreach ($handle in $handles){
   $window = $app.windows() | Where-Object {$_.HWND -eq $handle}
   $window.Document.documentElement | Out-File ".\Desktop\test\$handle.txt"
}
5

Thanks for the direction so far.
I need to identify each instance of Internet Explorer already running and not start new sessions.
I am doing this via
$Test1 = ( get-process | Where-Object {$_.ProcessName -Eq ‘iexplore’} | select -ExpandProperty mainWindowHandle )

And this gives me a list of windows handles:
396408
199978
330736
789426

What I then need to do is to get access to the IE document properties such as:
$ie.document.documentElement
At the moment I only know how to do this when you create a new-object:
$ie = New-Object -ComObject ‘InternetExplorer.Application’
However, I need to do this for an existing object that I have identified via the windows handle as above.
Thanks 

6

Try the third option on my previous post. Some of the handles and HWND are identical.

7

Thanks this works, I appreciate the help :slight_smile: