Fixed KEYSTACK /i with repeat count sends wrong keys

May 20, 2008
12,173
133
Syracuse, NY, USA
Whenever/however I use "/i" with keystack and with repeat counts, it sends the wrong keys. "/i=pid,timeout" is particularly odd. Is the "=" really required?

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Even without repeat counts, the "=" is problematic.

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May 20, 2008
12,173
133
Syracuse, NY, USA
There's no more mangled text, but in more than an hour of experimenting I can see no evidence that /i works (does anything). Here's just one of many that I tried.
Code:
start excel & keystack /i=%_startpid,5000 "foo"
"foo" doesn't show up anywhere.

According to WinDbg, TCC doesn't call WaitForInputIdle().
 
Oct 9, 2015
4
0
This does what you likely expect:
Code:
start notepad & keystack /i=%_startpid,5000 "foo"
.
When Excel starts, it is not processing printable characters for insertion anywhere. Notepad, when it starts (without a named file or when told to edit an existing file), is immediately prepared to insert such characters into its text box.
 
May 20, 2008
12,173
133
Syracuse, NY, USA
This does what you likely expect:
Code:
start notepad & keystack /i=%_startpid,5000 "foo"
.
When Excel starts, it is not processing printable characters for insertion anywhere. Notepad, when it starts (without a named file or when told to edit an existing file), is immediately prepared to insert such characters into its text box.
Well, yes, but it's not because of the "/i" (which I don't think is working). As you pointed out, notepad is ready quickly enough; it works without "/i". At least here, it's needed with Excel (and doesn't work). As I said earlier, according to WinDbg, TCC doesn't call WaitForInputIdle, even when "/i" is used.

To see if it worked in principle, I overloaded my WAIT plugin with (after some parsing and opening a process) the likes of
Code:
        WaitForInputIdle(hProc, dwTimeout);
        CloseHandle(hProc);

And this (below) does work.
Code:
start excel & wait /i %_startpid 5000 & keystack "foo"

while both of these fail.
Code:
start excel & keystack "foo"
start excel & keystack /i=%_startpid,5000 "foo"
 
May 20, 2008
12,173
133
Syracuse, NY, USA
I still can't see KEYSTACK work with /i. As I said before,
Code:
start excel & keystack "foo"
doesn't work while using my own wrapper for WaitForInputIdle
Code:
start excel & wait /i %_startpid 5000 & keystack "foo"
does work ("foo" appears in excel).

When I do this with build 29
Code:
start excel & keystack /i=%_startpid,5000 "foo"
no "foo" appears in excel (or anywhere else).

Watching with WinDbg I can see TCC doing everything right! ... OpenProcess with the right PID and PROCESS_QUERY_INFORMATION (which is sufficient) ... that succeeds ... then WaitForInputIdle with the right HANDLE and timeout ... that succeeds (returns 0) ...
 
May 20, 2008
12,173
133
Syracuse, NY, USA
Having experimented quite a bit with KEYSTACK /i and my own WAIT /i, and having read a couple interesting installments of "The New Old Thing" (Raymond Chen, on WaitForInputIdle, 3/25-3/26 2010), I've come to the opinion that WaitForInputIdle is not very a reliable way of waiting for the window/thread that you want to get keystrokes to actually be in a state to receive keystrokes.
 

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