Autodial the Internet

[BooWisdom]

I have searched all the forums as well as scowering the internet for a resolution to this problem. Hopefully someone can help me out.

I have a button in my CD presentation which takes users to my Client's online Real Estate listings via the AMS4 browser object. All of my CD presentations are all set to full screen as my clients do not wish the users to be distracted by their desktop or any other portion of windows.

Being as such, when the user clicks on the link to view the online listings via the browser object, some of them are not connected to the internet at the time of viewing the CD presentation. I figured it would not be a problem, as I simply used the built in function for checking for an internet connection, and then popping up a dialogue box rather than the browser object to inform them that they are required to be connected to the internet in order to view the online listings.

The problem now, is that since the CD presentations are full screen and my clients do not want a minimize button, as to keep their customers from being taken away from their presentation until they hit the "X" to actually exit, they are unable to connect to the internet without actually closing out of the CD presentation.

So, here is my question. Is there a way to have a button they can click in the presentation that will launch the dialer for their default connection after sending the built in command to check if the internet connection exists?

I can do this with no problem on NT based machines (NT, 2000, XP) as there is a registry entry created when they create their dial-up connection, so I simply reference that registry key (HKCU\Software\Microsoft\RAS Phonebook\DefaultEntry) and use %SysDir%\rasphone.exe -d %RegData% to launch the dial-up window on top of the full screen CD presentation. Howerever, rasphone.exe does not exist on Win95 and Win98 machines. On those machines, one use to have to use "RUNDLL32 RNAUI.DLL,RnaDial <name of ISP connection>"

That is fine if I can use that for Win95 and Win98 users, however, Win95 and Win98 didn't store a registry entry of the name of their Default Internet Connection to use as the variable, as they can name it anything they want when they create their internet connection. I can hardly launch a command to connect them to the internet if I don't know the name of their default connection.

So, to sum it all up. How can I allow my clients customers to click a button and have it launch their Default Internet Connection dial-up window, no matter what version of Windows they are running (Win9x, WinME, WinNT, Win2k, WinXP)

Maybe there is a way to use Wininet.dll and the InternetAutodial function?

(Sorry for writing a book, but I just wanted to be completely clear on what I was looking for)

[rickgood]

Re: Autodial the Internet

Why not have a small window (separate project) when the program first loads that says "Much of the content on this CD-ROM requires Internet access, please connect to your ISP, then click continue" I've done that for a couple of projects and it seems to work OK, at least no one has complained and the client likes it too. Then once they hit the continue button,
the small project exits and then opens your main program and they are connected. I'm not sure some users would be that thrilled about your program automatically dialing into their Internet connection without some type of notification first.

My two cents.

[Option_Explicit]

Re: Autodial the Internet

I think for Dial up clients, since the "Connect To" window seems to be the same title across all windows platforms, you could do this perhaps:

file.open "http://yoursite.com"
//Will invoke Dialup Connection Dialog

Application.Sleep "5"
//Allow Some time for the Dialog box to start, for some of those slow computers

%Dial% = Window.Find "Connect To"
// A lengthy string of all open windows

Window.BringToFront = %Dial%
//If the Dialup "Connect To" Window is present it should flip it on top of your menu.

Some drawbacks are, since your AMS window will be full screen, clicking anywhere on it will switch it back to front, losing the Dialup window.
It's an idea at best , would need a few more options to make it reliable A "WHILE" loop would work I think until the connection has been established

[BooWisdom]

Re: Autodial the Internet

Option Explicit, I can see how that might possibly work, but starting the Dialing process once the Dial-Up connection is visible was not my concern. My concern was getting the Dial-up connection window to show. On most computers, by default install, I belive the AutoDial option in the Registry is activated (set to 1), which would launch the default dial-up connection once an application attempts to make a call to the internet. But I need to be SURE that everyone can get on the internet, and if someone has turned off the AutoDial feature either directly through the Registry, through DUN configuration or with a 3rd party program like TweakUI, then there is no way it will just automatically open.

Rickgood, your idea is simple, straight to the point and I could slap myself for overlooking such an easy solution to a problem that I have over analized beyond necessity.

However, I have resolved the issue another way, which, of course is BY FAR more complicated than your solution, as mine involved reading from "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\RemoteAccess\Profile" in the registry when the Check Connection returns false AND the OS is recognized as Win9x, and storing the Sub Keys of that Registry Key as a double comma delimited variable, then transfering that delimited list into a List Box and having the user then CHOOSE the dial-up profile they want to connect with, and their selection is stored in another variable that is fed into the string "%SysDir%\RUNDLL32.EXE RNAUI.DLL,RnaDial %MyProfile%", which launches the dial-up window to connect to the internet... all without leaving the full screen CD presentation. I have also added the dialogue box that pops up to let them know what is going on, thus giving them the option to select cancel before the default connection window is launched, so that I am not automatically forcing them to connect to the internet. I just like it better this way, as it does not interfer with those people that are already connected to the internet prior launching the presentation.

The customers that are viewing my client's presentations are, I hate to say, not the smartest individuals. They encompass the same intelligence as the majority of people on this planet, which is not saying much, so I tend to program my presentations as idiot proof as possible.

Again, Option Explicit and Rickgood, I thank you VERY much for your response to my issue. I love to feed off of others views on my problems which gives me great insight and ideas on my future CD Presentations.