Permission denied error while executing shell command from JavaScript

Question

I am trying to run shell command to open notepad from JavaScript. This is how my code looks like:

 <script type="text/javascript">
     function runNotepad() {
        var oShell = new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application");
        var commandtoRun = "C:\\WINDOWS\\Notepad.exe";
        oShell.ShellExecute(commandtoRun, null, "", "open", "1");
        }
 </script>

When i try to run this, it throws me an error saying Microsoft JScript runtime error: Permission denied.

I also have set Allow active content to run in files on my computer in IE but still no luck.

Any idea what am i missing here?

Answer 1

Any idea what am i missing here?

No browser would allow JavaScript to arbitrarily start a process. This functionality is not available in Internet Explorer because of the security implications.

This will work if run from other Scripting Hosts, such as cscript, but not Internet Explorer.