External Commands from the Windows Client

In Release 5.1 and higher you can use the APPX Desktop or HTML client and the .CLIENT LOAD URL API.

In earlier versions, there is no official or supported way to do this with the older Presentation Manager client.

Here is a possible way of providing this functionality for the non-Java clients. The following is provided as a hint for desperate consultants and end-user sites. APPX does not endorse, support or troubleshoot the use of such a technique. If you do this, you are on your own.

If you can find out the client's IP address, you can then use a combination of programs like Ataman Software's rshd.exe and rsh.exe, to remotely call a client program from the server. Ataman Software can be found on the web at www.ataman.com.

This technique is probably only appropriate for intranet use, since it requires 'rshd.exe' to be installed on all clients. Internet users would see it as extremely 'not good' for you to be invoking local commands on their machines from across the Internet. Unless the client and server are separated by a firewall, you can probably make this work on your intranet, but you have to understand a bit about TCP/IP networking and rshd/rsh, and be willing do some coding and to fight with a few configuration issues. PLEASE do not even think of doing this if you are not familiar with TCP/IP security issues.

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