Windows - remote system window text

[rdahlstrom]

OK - I know how to get the text/title of the windows on a local system
by using the window handle. What I want to do is to get the text/
title of the windows on a remote system. Enumerating the window
handles will of course not work remotely, I know that. Does anyone
know anything short of a client/server setup that *will* work?

Everything would be Windows 2003 server, and I can assume that I have
administrative rights to all affected machines.

Any ideas?

 

[msj]

Well, i guess you will need a process on each machine you need to
monitor, and then you do have a client server setup.

This can be easily accomplished with fx Pyro (http://
pyro.sourceforge.net/) for communication, and the Win32 Python library
(https://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/) for creating a service.

 

[rdahlstrom]

Well, i guess you will need a process on each machine you need to
monitor, and then you do have a client server setup.

This can be easily accomplished with fx Pyro (http://
pyro.sourceforge.net/) for communication, and the Win32 Python library
(https://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/) for creating a service.

Crap, that's what I didn't want to do. I am slowly coming to the
realization that I'm going to have to, but I really didn't want to do
that. That brings up a whole host of other things that I would then
have to do - remote installation, etc. I guess I could do it, but I'd
really rather not.

 

[msj]

I can understand that. But look at the bright side, you don't have to
rely on windows authentication, you just need an open port. Now i
don't know what you are building, but with a client/server setup you
can also get to other data that you might need, like mouse movement to
detect for activity, username, etc.

 

[rdahlstrom]

I can understand that. But look at the bright side, you don't have to
rely on windows authentication, you just need an open port. Now i
don't know what you are building, but with a client/server setup you
can also get to other data that you might need, like mouse movement to
detect for activity, username, etc.

That is true, and I could use some of the additional functionality I
guess...

 

[Gabriel Genellina]

Crap, that's what I didn't want to do. I am slowly coming to the
realization that I'm going to have to, but I really didn't want to do
that.

Try WMI. I don't know for sure if you can enumerate windows, maybe yes. At
least you can enumerate remote processes.

 

[Tim Golden]

Try WMI. I don't know for sure if you can enumerate windows, maybe yes. At
least you can enumerate remote processes.

Pretty sure not. You can just about get hold of a logon session
on the other machine and I did poke about through some of the
Lsa... and other stuff to see whether that was enough to give
you a remote workstation / windows list. But it doesn't seem
likely. (Happy to be proved wrong

TJG

 

[rdahlstrom]

Pretty sure not. You can just about get hold of a logon session
on the other machine and I did poke about through some of the
Lsa... and other stuff to see whether that was enough to give
you a remote workstation / windows list. But it doesn't seem
likely. (Happy to be proved wrong

TJG

You don't know how happy to be proved wrong I would be... but I don't
think WMI will do what I want. I can get almost everything - command
line parameters, process ID, kill, restart, etc., but not the window
name, which I need.