How to get Window title of newly spawned process thro' Batch-Vbscript hybrid script?

Question

I am trying to automate the Group Policy editing process as much as possible.

I have the following script to spawn the gpedit.msc process but it's window goes out of focus as soon as it opens:

FINDSTR /E "'VbsCode" %~f0 > %temp%\~temp.vbs
CSCRIPT //NOLOGO %temp%\~temp.vbs
Sub GPEditOptions 'VbsCode
    On Error Resume Next 'VbsCode
    Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.shell") 'VbsCode
    WshShell.Visible = False 'VbsCode
    WshShell.Run "gpedit.msc",0 'VbsCode
    :: WshShell.AppActivate "Local Group Policy Editor" 'VbsCode
End Sub 'VbsCode
GPEditOptions 'VbsCode
:: WScript.Quit 0 'VbsCode

How can I AppActivate the window that has been opened by the newly spawned gpedit.msc process ? Specifically how to know what's the name/title of that window that has been opened ? "Local Group...Editor" doesn't work.

Answer 1

I think I eventually figured out, how to approach this problem. There are different types of processes.

In this case, I first need to select the Microsoft Management Console window, since it's the parent process which spawns the actual "Local Group Policy Editor" child process.

So this code does the job of selecting the first Windows Component starting with letter "W" by sending a ton of keys priorly, and yes you do need Administrator elevation for proper selection of options in the gpedit.msc window:

@echo off
net file 1>nul 2>nul
if not '%errorlevel%' == '0' (
    powershell Start-Process -FilePath "%0" -ArgumentList "%cd%" -verb runas >nul 2>&1
    exit /b
)
cd /d %1

FINDSTR /E "'VbsCode" %~f0 > %temp%\~temp.vbs
CSCRIPT //NOLOGO %temp%\~temp.vbs
Sub GPEditOptions 'VbsCode
    On Error Resume Next 'VbsCode
    Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.shell") 'VbsCode
    WshShell.Visible = False 'VbsCode
    WshShell.Run "gpedit.msc",0 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.AppActivate "Microsoft Management Console" 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.AppActivate "Local Group Policy Editor" 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.sendKeys "% x{TAB}{ENTER}" 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.sendKeys "{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}" 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.sendKeys "{DOWN}{DOWN}{ENTER}" 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.sendKeys "{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}" 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.sendKeys "{DOWN}{DOWN}{DOWN}{DOWN}" 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.sendKeys "{DOWN}{DOWN}{ENTER}" 'VbsCode
    WScript.Sleep 500 : WshShell.sendKeys "{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{W}" 'VbsCode
End Sub 'VbsCode
GPEditOptions 'VbsCode
WScript.Quit 0 'VbsCode

Hope this helps anyone facing similar issue.