Watir issue with AutoIt on Vista 64 bit

[Joe Dimauro]

Installed Watir (v1.6.5) on top of Ruby (v1.8.6) on my 32bit WinXP and
64 bit Vista systems. Ran into way too many issues trying to use Ruby
1.9.1 (64-bit) and Watir(v1.6.5), so degraded to try these older
versions, as Watir site recommends.

Are versions of Watir (v1.6.5) and Ruby (v1.8.6) for Vista 64-bit
available? If so where?

This is the four line program that run OK on 32bit XP, but fails on 64
bit Vista.

require 'Watir'
browser=Watir::Browser.new
browser.minimize # Fails on this line
browser.close

Here's the irb session on the 64-bit Vista system:

C:\>irb
irb(main):001:0> require 'Watir'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> browser=Watir::Browser.new
=> #<Watir::IE:0x4c98a5c url="about:blank" title="">
irb(main):003:0> browser.minimize
WIN32OLERuntimeError: unknown OLE server: `AutoItX3.Control'
HRESULT error code:0x800401f3
Invalid class string
from
C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/watir-1.6.5/lib/watir/ie.rb:114:in
`initialize'
from
C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/watir-1.6.5/lib/watir/ie.rb:114:in `new'
from
C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/watir-1.6.5/lib/watir/ie.rb:114:in
`autoit'
from
C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/watir-1.6.5/lib/watir/ie-class.rb:438:in
`autoit'
from
C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/watir-1.6.5/lib/watir/ie-class.rb:435:in
`set_window_state'
from
C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/watir-1.6.5/lib/watir/ie-class.rb:416:in
`minimize'
from (irb):3
irb(main):004:0> exit


FYI: Here's the output from gem's env command:
C:\>gem env
RubyGems Environment:
- RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.3.6
- RUBY VERSION: 1.8.6 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 287) [i386-mswin32]
- INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
- RUBY EXECUTABLE: C:/Ruby/bin/ruby.exe
- EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: C:/Ruby/bin
- RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
- ruby
- x86-mswin32-60
- GEM PATHS:
- C:/Ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
- C:/Users/Me/.gem/ruby/1.8
- GEM CONFIGURATION:
- :update_sources => true
- :verbose => true
- :benchmark => false
- :backtrace => false
- :bulk_threshold => 1000
- REMOTE SOURCES:
- http://rubygems.org/

Here's relevant definition from the Watir file: ie-class.rb

414 # Minimize the window (appears as icon on taskbar)
415 def minimize
416 set_window_state :SW_MINIMIZE
417 end


434 def set_window_state(state)
435 autoit.WinSetState title, '', autoit.send(state)
436 end
437 def autoit
438 Watir::autoit
439 end

Here's relevant definition from the Watir file: ie.rb:

108 def self.autoit
109 unless @@autoit
110 begin
111 @@autoit = WIN32OLE.new('AutoItX3.Control')
112 rescue WIN32OLERuntimeError
113 _register('AutoItX3.dll')
114 @@autoit = WIN32OLE.new('AutoItX3.Control')
115 end
116 end
117 @@autoit
118 end