Using the Internet Explorer Command

The Use Internet Explorer check box appears on the Add Test dialog within the Internet Explorer wizard (IE wizard).

The IE wizard uses Microsoft® Internet Explorer® as its Web browser. When the IE wizard is launched, an instance of Internet Explorer is created. The IE wizard then resizes Internet Explorer to fit within IE Wizard's user interface.

Note: When you are navigating the Web using the IE Wizard, you are actually navigating using Internet Explorer. It is Internet Explorer that is navigating to the Web site, interacting with the Web server, and retrieving the HTML.  IE wizard is programmatically controlling Internet Explorer behind the scenes so it can query Internet Explorer to navigate to a specific URL, and to retrieve the HTML from the loaded web page.

On the other hand, when an IE Wizard-generated Test is created and executed, either through the Run Test button or during execution of the associated Monitor, Internet Explorer is not involved. In this case, the Reveille system itself is making the connection to the Web site and retrieving the HTML. Usually this difference is not an issue, and an IE Wizard-generated Test is executed as expected.

For those rare circumstances when a Test does not executed properly, the user may force the Test to run under the control of Internet Explorer, which sometimes solves the problem.

To force a Test to run under the control of Internet Explorer itself, select the Use Internet Explorer option, located on the Add Test dialog.

When this option is enabled, the URL field on the Add Test dialog changes to reflect the fact the Test is no longer navigating to a Web site directly; rather, it is utilizing the services of a Reveille ASPX page, which is responsible for launching Internet Explorer and navigating to the actual Web site.

There are several pitfalls to enabling the User Internet Explorer option:

• User credentials, as specified in the Test options in the Admin Console, are ignored.
• Use of Cookies, as specified in the Test options in the Admin Console, are ignored.
• Web site must not prompt the user for any information. When the Test is executed by the Reveille System, it is executed in the context of the Reveille Service. This is a background process having no user interface.
• You must manually configure the Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) settings for Internet Explorer.  When the Test is executed by the Reveille System, it is executed in the context of ASP.NET. The security context of ASP.NET is different than the interactive user, which is the person logged on to the machine and running the IE Wizard. When ASP.NET runs the ASPX page associated with the Test, it fails because of the differences in security contexts.

To configure DCOM settings for Internet Explorer under Windows® XP:

1. Navigate to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Component Services.
2. Expand the left-hand side to show the DCOM Config properties, then locate the Internet Explorer item on the right-hand side.
3. Right-click the Internet Explorer item and select the Properties menu item.
4. After the Internet Explorer Properties dialog appears, click the Security tab to display the security properties.
5. Select the Customize option under the Launch and Activation Permissions group, then click Edit.  The Launch Permissions dialog appears.
6. Click Add.  The Select Users and Groups dialog appears.
7. Click Advanced.  The Select Users and Groups dialog expands to show advanced options.
8. Click Find Now. The name of the user accounts on the local machine appear at the bottom of the dialog.
9. Locate and select the ASP.NET account, then click OK. The Select Users or Groups dialog minimizes, and the ASP.NET account appears in the Enter the object names to select list.
10. Click OK.  The Launch Permission dialog appears, with the ASP.NET account displayed in the Group of user names list.
11. In the Permissions for ASP.NET Machine Account list, select the check boxes in the Allow column for the Local Launch and Local Activation options.
12. Click OK.  The Internet Explorer Properties dialog appears again.
13. Click OK.