 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussionsAccessExcelInfoPathOutlookPowerPointPublisherWordDirectoryUser Groups Related Topics Outlook ExpressInternet ExplorerWindowsMS Server ProductsMore Topics ... |
MS Office Forum / Word / Programming / November 2005Word application hijacking
[Posted to microsoft.public.word.programming and microsoft.public.word.oleinterop. If there is a better place to post this, please let me know.] Our application uses and controls Word in order to have the user edit documents of the application. To that end, it creates a Word object using OLE, which starts up a WINWORD.EXE process. It now appears that some other applications, most notably the Word browser plug-in, will use that same WINWORD.EXE process to open their documents. Furthermore, if the document opened in that application (the browser, say) is active, the calls our application makes to Word are no more handled correctly. We've tried several workarounds to no avail (trying to activate Word from within our app fails, starting a "decoy" word first may foil the browser, but is also used when the user double-clicks a document and can thus be closed, etc). What we actually would like to achieve is that the WINWORD.EXE process that we start by instantiating a Word application object via OLE cannot be hijacked by any other program. Does anybody here know whether such a thing is possible? Thanks in advance, Jeroen Not really much help but nobody else has chimed in so ... Somebody will probably correct me but if you give control to the user (which, of course you must if they are to edit the document) I don't think there is any easy way you can stop other applications (or the user) from not just using the instance but also, possibly, closing it. You can keep a reference to your document so that you don't need to worry which document is active - which may solve your immediate problem - but for a more general solution you will need to have event code running in the Word instance which reacts to documents being opened or closed; you could possibly do this with a global template which you install when you first start the Word instance (and uninstall when you end it). Although this might solve _your_ problem, it could, of course, cause problems for other applications which try to use the Word instance. Normally the instance returned via GetObject is indeterminable in advance if there are multiple instances of an application running so you don't gain (much) by creating dummy instances. There may be another way with Windows API to do something a bit smarter but I'm afraid I have no idea what it might be. -- Enjoy, Tony > [Posted to microsoft.public.word.programming and > microsoft.public.word.oleinterop. If there is a better place to post [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > Thanks in advance, > Jeroen Tony Jollans schreef: > Not really much help but nobody else has chimed in so ... > > Somebody will probably correct me but if you give control to the user > (which, of course you must if they are to edit the document) I don't think > there is any easy way you can stop other applications (or the user) from not > just using the instance but also, possibly, closing it. There is actually no problem in giving control to the user. I can track what is happening there where the user is doing things by way of events from our global template. One of our work-arounds (starting a "decoy" Word instance first, which the browser plug-in would hijack instead of our "real" Word instance) fails because the user can open this by double-clicking a Word document, and then close. So, that is not the core problem, it is only a failure of the workaround. > You can keep a reference to your document so that you don't need to worry > which document is active - which may solve your immediate problem - but for [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > solve _your_ problem, it could, of course, cause problems for other > applications which try to use the Word instance. We are using this approach, and it works fine when the user works normally with it. Unfortunately, when another application (again, the main culprit is opening a Word document in the browser) tries to use Word, it may use the instance that we started. And it appears to happen then that Word is thoroughly confused on what is happening and who is in control. Calling functions in the template fails. Trying to activate our own document before that fails. Currently our only working workaround is informing the user to either close the browser, or bring our applications document to the foreground manually... After which things resume to work like they should. > Normally the instance returned via GetObject is indeterminable in advance if > there are multiple instances of an application running so you don't gain > (much) by creating dummy instances. It seems to be the first one started that is selected by GetObject, I even believe that this is documented. > There may be another way with Windows > API to do something a bit smarter Yes, I was hoping for something like that. > but I'm afraid I have no idea what it > might be. Pity. Still, thanks a lot for your interest and effort! Regards, Jeroen I vaguely recall a discussion a number of years ago that indicated that the safest way to proceed would be to first create a NEW instance of Word as a decoy, the create another NEW instance that you actually use. Howard Kaikow schreef: > I vaguely recall a discussion a number of years ago that indicated that the > safest way to proceed would be to first create a NEW instance of Word as a > decoy, the create another NEW instance that you actually use. Yes, thats exactly what we've tried. It is not waterproof, however. The decoy Word instance is not only used by other applications like the browser plug-in, but it is also used when the user opens a Word document manually (e.g. by double-clicking a Word document). When the user closes that one, the decoy Word instance is gone, too. Thanks anyway, Jeroen > Howard Kaikow schreef: > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > document manually (e.g. by double-clicking a Word document). When the > user closes that one, the decoy Word instance is gone, too. Yes, but you are not using the decoy instance. If necessary, start more than one decoy instance. No matter how many decoy instances you start you can not guarantee anything. Think what happens when you are a user. If you want to open a Word Document you can press Alt+Tab one or more times until you find an instance of Word and use it to open the document. If you have multiple instances of Word you don't care which instance you use - the first one you find is good enough. The order in which you scroll through instances of applications depends on the order in which you have used them previously and you cannot set any particular instance as not for such use (this is not technically true as it is possible programmatically to start hidden applications which don't appear in the Alt+Tab list - but you cannot do this from the UI). When a program (Browser, Explorer, etc.) wants to open a Word document it scrolls through all the available applications until it finds a Word one and uses it. Just like the user, it doesn't care which instance it uses - the first one it finds is good enough. Just as with the user, the order of application instances checked depends on what has gone before. Programs, however, may check hidden application instances as well as visible ones (although if they want a visible one they should only check visible ones) and, AFAIK, there is no way to set an application 'very hidden' and even if there were it wouldn't suit because you need your instance of Word to be visible for the user. In theory, if you create multiple instances, you might think you are reducing the odds but, in practice, I don't think that's the case. You also have the problem of extra resource usage, and of tidying up afterwards. I don't think there is anything you can do to stop Word instances being hijacked as you describe. It might be possible, however, to force your browser to create a new instance rather than trying to find an existing one, I don't know - if not, I fear you are stuck with the issue. It should not, however, interfere with your program and if you have object pointers set they should remain valid. Can you give any specific examples of something which fails? -- Enjoy, Tony > > Howard Kaikow schreef: > > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > If necessary, start more than one decoy instance. Where possible, code should be using hidden instances. And, tho i've never tried it, there might be a way to prevent a particular instance from closing by using Application events on that instance. Have you seen... http://support.microsoft.com/?id=311765 Not sure what your app is/does but this control will host any MS Office app exclusively. Hope it helps Richard > [Posted to microsoft.public.word.programming and > microsoft.public.word.oleinterop. If there is a better place to post [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > Thanks in advance, > Jeroen > Have you seen... > http://support.microsoft.com/?id=311765 No, I hadn't seen that one yet. Judging from the abstract it may be of help. I'll look into it. Thanks a lot! > Not sure what your app is/does but this control will host any MS Office app > exclusively. [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > > Thanks in advance, > > Jeroen |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.