Browser.ExecScript() stopped working after updating windows

Question

I've set up a simple testbed for WatiN (ver 2.1) which reads:

var browser = new IE();

browser.GoTo("http://www.google.co.il"); // webpage doesn't matter really
browser.RunScript("alert(123)");

This works only if KB3025390 is not installed. Installing it breaks the above test with an UnAuthorizedAccessException which has HRESULT set to E_ACCESSDENIED. What gives? Is there any workaround?

Update: Using IWebBrowser2.Navigate2 along with "javascript:console.log(123)" type of scripts works however

• it makes me feel uneasy using such a backchannel
• the scripts run through this back-channel of .Navigate2() may only have a max length of about 2070 chars (give or take) otherwise they get forcibly truncated to this length leading to javascript errors upon attempting to run them
• using .Navigate2(), even with the most trivial script, will clog the ready state of Internet Explorer for good in the sense that it will be set to READYSTATE_LOADING without any hope of getting rid of it. In simple terms this means that once you use this hack, you either have to perform every single subsequent operation in WatiN in a "dont-wait-for-webpage-to-load" fashion (GoToNoWait, ClickNoWait etc) lest your code freezes upon waiting for the browser to turn back to READYSTATE_COMPLETE (which will never come about ofcourse as already mentioned).
• there appears to be a much broader issue here in the sense that I can't even access the properties of an IHtmlWindow2 object p.e. window.document throws an unauthorized exception again making it virtually impossible to transfer over to the C# world the return-values of the scripts I'm running (using Expando etc) for documents other than window.top.document (for the window.top.document window there is IWebBrowser2.Document which does the trick)

Update#2: The folks over at the selenium project have also noticed this issue:

https://code.google.com/p/selenium/issues/detail?id=8302

A bug report has been created as well:

https://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/details/1062093/installation-of-kb3025390-breaks-out-of-process-javascript-execution-in-ie11

Update#3: IHTMLWindow2.setInterval and IHTMLWindow2.setTimeout also throw UnauthorizedAccess exceptions. These methods are not marked as deprecated in:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/ko-kr/library/windows/desktop/aa741505%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

yet they have wounded up suffering from the same cutbacks all the same.

Update#4: I gave the approach recommended in this post a shot:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/18546866/863651

In order to dynamically invoke the "eval" method of the IHTMLWindow2 object (or any other method really). Got the same "System.UnauthorizedAccessException" as above. So no joy here either.

Microsoft recommends using "eval" over "execscript" however after the above experiment I suspect that they are refering to accessing "eval" only from within the browser.

As far as I can tell thus far, when it comes to the full-fledged IE11+ using "eval" out-of-process (via COM) appears to have been completely prohibited along with any other function-invocation of the window object, the only exception being the back-channel of the .Navigate2() mentioned above.

Answer 1

It turns out Microsoft eventually backpedaled on its decision to kill off .execScript at COM-level. Just install the latest updates for Windows including kb3025390: One of the updates for IE that came after kb3025390 brings back .execScript functionality at COM-level

Note, however, that .execScript is not accessible through IE's javascript anymore. In that context it's gone for good.

Answer 2

fyi: this one is also not working

ieInstance.Document.Script.<methodNameString>(<commaSeperatedParameterString>)

try this worked for me at some places but not all places

ieObject.Navigate "javascript:<methodNameString>(<commaSeperatedParameterString>)", Null, "_parent"

or

ieObject.Navigate2 "javascript:"<methodNameString>(<commaSeperatedParameterString>)", Null, "_parent"

now trying to find out solution using eval

Answer 3

I have found a way around the problem of an update installing automatically. You can just create a simple batch file with following content.

{code} @echo off

wusa /uninstall /kb:3025390/quiet /norestart

END {code}

Then go to task scheduler, create a new task for this batch file to run every one hour or day as per your requirements. Add it as a system task so it runs in the background and does not affect the running automations.