I had the automation tools which are written for IE. Now, I want to re-write those same tools this time to use Microsoft Edge as the default browser. I could not find the alternative approach other than downloading the WebDriver which comes as part of the Selenium Package.
How can I automate the Edge browser without downloading/installing other software or web drivers?
Which version of Selenium are you using? If you're using Selenium 3 or Selenium 4, the available languages are Java, Python, C#, Ruby, and JavaScript. You can refer to this doc for more information.
If you want to use Selenium to automate Edge in VBA, you can only use SeleniumBasic. You can refer to this thread for the detailed steps of automating Edge browser with SeleniumBasic.
There are now many ways to achieve this.
Method 1
As of 25th April 2022, you can now directly automate Edge IE Mode with VBA without any additional third party-software. The below guidance has been well tested by me and my colleagues after obtaining it from exchanging with our partnered Microsoft Support team.
Win Upgrade + Registry Fix
Your Windows version needs to be at least 20H2. You can check your Windows version with this guide here.
Your Windows needs to have the latest cumulative KB update past March 2022. You can check your Windows update history with this guide here.
Finally install the below registry keys on your Windows and restart:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main] "NotifyDisableIEOptions"=dword:00000002
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\EnterpriseMode] "EnableGlobalWindowListInIEMode"=dword:00000001
Per the MS Support team, the above method should work until 2029. Official documentation on this might be coming soon I believe.
After the above steps, VBA shall be able to interact with Edge IE Mode as if it is an Internet Explorer window. Your current code that automates the InternetExplorer.Application object will work with Edge IE mode as well.
Method 2
You can also employ the following method written by ChrisK23 of CodeProject that makes use of Chrome Devtools Protocol to interact with Chromium-based browsers. The advantage of this method is that it allows VBA to interact directly with Edge without IE mode and also with Chrome.
Automate Chrome / Edge using VBA via CDP - Code Project
The article above also includes an example file which you can download and explore the method. However, do note that the example file is missing Microsoft Scripting Runtime reference which you need to include this manually afterwards to make it working.
With this method, you can now automate even Chrome without additional software installed.
I have created a dedicated Git with a demo file to this method here:
https://github.com/longvh211/Chromium-Automation-with-CDP-for-VBA
Method 3
Another method involves using winAPI to retrieve the HTML document object from Internet Explorer Server class of the running Edge IE Mode window.
Note: the above codes are for Office 32-bit. For Office 64-bit you will need to convert them (refer to this MSDN link for more details)
The pros of this method is that it is quite clean and interact well with Edge IE Mode without any additional setup or installation.
The cons is that it only works with Edge IE mode. Hence web applications that run only on Edge and not IE mode will not be automatable using this method.
You can refer to this dedicated Git in which I have prepared a demo file here:
https://github.com/longvh211/Edge-IE-Mode-Automation-with-IES-for-VBA
You can consider to use Win API to achieve Edge automation. It doesn't require any installation and regular update of Edge driver. Please see my experiences to use Win API on Edge browser webpage automation :
Place the following codes in a new blank module. I name this module as “MsEdge” usually. The codes in this module are no need to modify for usage. You can directly use the codes even if you don’t know much about Win API.
Public lngProcessID_Close As Long
'Part 1 --- Locate IES
Private strHwndIES As String
Private lngHwndIndex As Long
Private Declare Function EnumWindows Lib "user32" ( _
ByVal lpEnumFunc As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function EnumChildWindows Lib "user32" ( _
ByVal hWndParent As Long, ByVal lpEnumFunc As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetClassName Lib "user32" Alias "GetClassNameA" ( _
ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal nMaxCount As Long) As Long
'Part 2 --- Get HTMLDocument from IES
Private Const SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG = &H2
Private Const GUID_IHTMLDocument2 = "{332C4425-26CB-11D0-B483-00C04FD90119}"
Private Declare Function RegisterWindowMessage Lib "user32" Alias "RegisterWindowMessageA" ( _
ByVal lpString As String) As Long
Private Declare Function SendMessageTimeout Lib "user32" Alias "SendMessageTimeoutA" ( _
ByVal hWnd As Long, _
ByVal msg As Long, _
ByVal wParam As Long, _
lParam As Any, _
ByVal fuFlags As Long, _
ByVal uTimeout As Long, _
lpdwResult As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function IIDFromString Lib "ole32" ( _
lpsz As Any, lpiid As Any) As Long
Private Declare Function ObjectFromLresult Lib "oleacc" ( _
ByVal lResult As Long, _
riid As Any, _
ByVal wParam As Long, _
ppvObject As Any) As Long
'Part 3 --- Check Process Name
Private Declare Function GetWindowThreadProcessId Lib "user32" ( _
ByVal hWnd As Long, lpdwProcessId As Long) As Long
Public Function findEdgeDOM(Title As String, URL As String) As Object
'Find criteria-hitting Edge page in IE mode
Dim hwndIES As Long
Do
hwndIES = enumHwndIES
If hwndIES Then
Set findEdgeDOM = getHTMLDocumentFromIES(hwndIES)
If Not findEdgeDOM Is Nothing Then
If InStr(findEdgeDOM.Title, Title) * InStr(findEdgeDOM.URL, URL) Then
Do
hwndIES = enumHwndIES
Loop While hwndIES
Exit Function
Else
Set findEdgeDOM = Nothing
End If
End If
End If
Loop While hwndIES
End Function
Public Function enumHwndIES() As Long
'Get all hwnds of IES
If Len(strHwndIES) = 0 Then
EnumWindows AddressOf EnumWindowsProc, 0
lngHwndIndex = 0
End If
'Exit function when overflow
If lngHwndIndex + 1 > (Len(strHwndIES) - Len(Replace(strHwndIES, ",", ""))) Then
enumHwndIES = 0
strHwndIES = ""
Exit Function
End If
'Return IES hwnd one by one
enumHwndIES = CLng(Split(Left(strHwndIES, Len(strHwndIES) - 1), ",")(lngHwndIndex))
lngHwndIndex = lngHwndIndex + 1
End Function
Private Function EnumWindowsProc(ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Boolean
Dim lngProcessID As Long
GetWindowThreadProcessId hWnd, lngProcessID
EnumChildWindows hWnd, AddressOf EnumChildProc, lngProcessID
EnumWindowsProc = True
End Function
Public Function EnumChildProc(ByVal hWnd As Long, ByVal lParam As Long) As Boolean
Dim strTargetClass As String, strClassName As String
strTargetClass = "Internet Explorer_Server"
strClassName = getClass(hWnd)
If strClassName = strTargetClass Then
If GetObject("winmgmts:").ExecQuery("Select Name from Win32_Process WHERE ProcessId='" & lParam & "' AND Name='msedge.exe'").Count Then
strHwndIES = strHwndIES & hWnd & ","
lngProcessID_Close = lParam
EnumChildProc = False
Exit Function
End If
End If
EnumChildProc = True
End Function
Private Function getClass(hWnd As Long) As String
Dim strClassName As String
Dim lngRetLen As Long
strClassName = Space(255)
lngRetLen = GetClassName(hWnd, strClassName, Len(strClassName))
getClass = Left(strClassName, lngRetLen)
End Function
Public Function getHTMLDocumentFromIES(ByVal hWnd As Long) As Object
Dim iid(0 To 3) As Long
Dim lMsg As Long, lRes As Long
lMsg = RegisterWindowMessage("WM_HTML_GETOBJECT")
SendMessageTimeout hWnd, lMsg, 0, 0, SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG, 1000, lRes
If lRes Then
IIDFromString StrPtr(GUID_IHTMLDocument2), iid(0)
ObjectFromLresult lRes, iid(0), 0, getHTMLDocumentFromIES
End If
End Function
Public Sub closeEdge(Title As String, URL As String)
'Close a Edge browser (the last one in EnumWindows order) with criteria-hitting webpage
lngProcessID_Close = 0
Dim findEdgeDOM As Object
Dim hwndIES As Long
Do
hwndIES = enumHwndIES
If hwndIES Then
Set findEdgeDOM = getHTMLDocumentFromIES(hwndIES)
If InStr(findEdgeDOM.Title, Title) * InStr(findEdgeDOM.URL, URL) Then
Shell "TaskKill /pid " & lngProcessID_Close
Do
hwndIES = enumHwndIES
Loop While hwndIES
Exit Sub
End If
End If
Loop While hwndIES
End Sub
Apply the functions in “MsEdge” module. There are a few application examples for you. Suggest to place and test below codes at another module:
Sub findEdgeDOM_DemoProc()
'Demo Proc : Use findEdgeDOM Function to get DOM of specific Edge webpage by Title AND URL
'Dim docHTML As MSHTML.HTMLDocument '--- Early Binding
Dim docHTML As Object '--- Late Binding
Set docHTML = findEdgeDOM("Enter Part of Webpage Title Here", "Enter Part of Webpage URL Here")
‘You can fill just one argument with either part of webpage title or URL as keyword to search for the target browser and leave another one blank (“”). If you provide both title and URL, the funcitons return DOM of the only browser that meets both criteria.
If Not docHTML Is Nothing Then Debug.Print docHTML.Title, docHTML.URL
End Sub
Sub goEdge()
'Go through every Edge webpage (opened in IE mode) and print out hwndIES, webpage Title & webpage URL
Dim hwndIES As Long
'Dim docHTML As MSHTML.HTMLDocument '--- Early Binding
Dim docHTML As Object '--- Late Binding
Do
hwndIES = enumHwndIES
If hwndIES Then
Set docHTML = getHTMLDocumentFromIES(hwndIES)
Debug.Print hwndIES, docHTML.Title, docHTML.URL
Else
Debug.Print "Procedure End"
End If
Loop While hwndIES
End Sub
Sub openEdgeByURL_DemoProc()
'Open Edge browser to specific URL
openEdgeByURL "Input Webpage URL Here"
End Sub
Public Sub openEdgeByURL(URL As String)
'Please change the path to your msedge.exe location in your PC
Shell "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe -url " & URL, vbNormalFocus
End Sub
Sub closeEdge_DemoProc()
'Close Edge browser
closeEdge "Enter Part of Webpage Title Here", "Enter Part of Webpage URL Here"
End Sub
you can use webdrivermanager package. for that below is the depedency:
For Maven
<dependency>
<groupId>io.github.bonigarcia</groupId>
<artifactId>webdrivermanager</artifactId>
<version>4.4.3</version>
</dependency>
For Gradle:
implementation group: 'io.github.bonigarcia', name: 'webdrivermanager', version: '4.4.3'
You can use below code in your class where u r initiating your browser:
WebDriverManager.edgedriver().setup()
Which version of Selenium are you using? If you're using Selenium 3 or Selenium 4, the available languages are Java, Python, C#, Ruby, and JavaScript. You can refer to this doc for more information.
If you want to use Selenium to automate Edge in VBA, you can only use SeleniumBasic. You can refer to this thread for the detailed steps of automating Edge browser with SeleniumBasic.
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