Installing and running pywinauto in a remote desktop

Question

I want to automate a very old software (drafix) that can only be run in Windows XP, on a remote desktop.

Would it be possible to write a pywinauto script that would directly interact with the software controls, without the need to send mouse/keyboard clicks on the GUI, and then minimize the Remote Desktop screen or even lock the PC?

I need to open the program, loop through a list of file names, open each one of them and save as a different format.

I did it with some basic GUI automation - clicking on buttons if necessary, sending keyboard shortcuts and entering the file names form a list. But it isn't very reliable, and I would like to minimize the Remote Desktop window and use my PC instead of having it in the foreground.

From what I have read here, it should be possible with some workarounds, and I would need to install an older version of Python (any idea which one?) on the remote desktop to write and run the script there.

Answer 1

What you can do is just copying your script to remote machine and run it there. Regarding minimized or closed RDP there are few workarounds and tricks described in the Remote Execution Guide which summarizes few StackOverflow answers.

Answer 2

There is other way that you can control gui application on remote Desktop with pywinauto. You can use rpyc or Remote Python Call. that is a python library for rpc(remote procedure call)

https://rpyc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

your remote computer is as server and your host is as client in rpyc.

first you you need to run rpyc_classic.py in remote computer after connect to it and use pywinauto library. for example i use rpyc for start microsip on remote computer with pywinauto.

ip of remote computer is 192.168.222.222.

import rpyc
ip = "192.168.222.222"
conn = rpyc.classic.connect(ip)
conn.execute("from pywinauto import Application")
conn.execute(r"Application().start(r'C:\Program Files (x86)\MicroSIP\microsip.exe')")