Pywinauto and Installshield - installshield

Question

My application is packaged using InstallShield. The first thing that happens when you execute the exe is that IS extracts the msi file; this takes about 10 seconds.
I can't look for my main window until the msi extraction is done, so I use time.sleep. Then I look for and find the handle of my window. But the call to app.window_(handle=1234).Wait("enabled", timeout=25, retry_interval=0.5) blows up with these error messages.
*C:\python32>python test.py
| [2558122] |
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 16, in <module>
dlg = app.Window_(handle=hwnd).Wait("enabled", timeout=25, retry_interval=0.
5)
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\application.py", line 380, in Wa
it
WaitUntil(timeout, retry_interval, lambda: self.__check_all_conditions(check
_method_names))
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\timings.py", line 292, in WaitUn
til
func_val = func(*args)
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\application.py", line 380, in <l
ambda>
WaitUntil(timeout, retry_interval, lambda: self.__check_all_conditions(check
_method_names))
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\application.py", line 337, in __
check_all_conditions
check = getattr(self, check_name)
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\application.py", line 252, in __
getattr__
ctrls = _resolve_control(self.criteria)
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\application.py", line 755, in _r
esolve_control
criteria)
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\timings.py", line 356, in WaitUn
tilPasses
func_val = func(*args)
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\application.py", line 522, in _g
et_ctrl
findwindows.find_window(**criteria[0]))
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\controls\HwndWrapper.py", line 1
80, in __new__
new_class = cls.FindWrapper(handle)
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\controls\HwndWrapper.py", line 1
12, in FindWrapper
class_name = handleprops.classname(handle)
File "C:\python32\lib\site-packages\pywinauto\handleprops.py", line 94, in cla
ssname
win32functions.GetClassName (handle, ctypes.byref(class_name), 256)
ctypes.ArgumentError: argument 1: <class 'TypeError'>: Don't know how to convert
parameter 1*
This is the code. I am an experienced programmer but a Python newbie. I have worked on this all day, googled my brains out, and have tried everything I can think of. Thanks in advance.
from pywinauto import application
from pywinauto import findwindows
app = application.Application()
app.start("MyInstallShieldApp.exe")
time.sleep(15)
hwnd=findwindows.find_windows(title=u"InstallShield Wizard", class_name="MsiDialogCloseClass")
print ("|", str(hwnd), "|")
dlg = app.Window_(handle=hwnd).Wait("enabled", timeout=25, retry_interval=0.5)

Answer 1

The problem in hwnd, it is a list, but handle=hwnd requires an int.
You should use find_window instead of find_windows or use only the first handle from hwnd, e.g.
hwnd = findwindows.find_windows(...
dlg = app.Window_(handle=hwnd[0])...
Also it may be useful for you to use SWAPY - UI inspector & code generator for pywinauto.

Answer 2

This question is a year old, but hopefully this will help anyone else in the same position. I initially had something similar to OP and was completely lost because I figured it would be as simple as the 7zip installation example provided in the pywinauto github repo. What I found, however, is that the actual installation opens up in a second process, defeating the point of opening the application with Application().start() to launch and hook onto the program simultaneously.
What I did was I used the Inspect program from the Windows SDK to locate the names of the elements and the window that held them once InstallShield was done extracting the .msi file. Instead of opening the InstallShield executable with start(), I used the subprocess module's popen() function to open the installer and then used Application().connect() to hook into the installer once it was extracted via InstallShield. Below is a rough version of what I did to get this functional, mixing my findings with the examples, documentation, and the OP:
import time
import subprocess
from pywinauto import application
# Open the module via Popen
# I tried using run() first but that prevented the click for reasons unknown
subprocess.Popen(r"C:\Users\fixer446\My Documents\InstallationFiles\Setup.exe")
# Let InstallShield extract the files and the installer load completely
time.sleep(15)
# Hook onto the newly opened setup window
app = application.Application().connect(title="Setup.WindowName", class_name="MsiDialogCloseClass")
# Work with the window and the controls within as advertised in pywinauto
# You may have to play around with this a little
installer = app["Setup.WindowName"]
installer["Next >"].Wait("enabled")
installer["Next >"].Click()
Hope this helps.

Answer 3

app.Window_(...) can take the same arguments as find_windows(...). Yeah, it's not highlighted in the docs now. But the code might be shorter:
from pywinauto import application
from pywinauto import findwindows
app = application.Application()
app.start("MyInstallShieldApp.exe")
# the dialog may not exist yet here
dlg_spec = app.Window_(title=u"InstallShield Wizard", class_name="MsiDialogCloseClass")
# after this line the dialog exists or exception is raised
dlg = dlg_spec.Wait("enabled", timeout=25, retry_interval=0.5)
# dlg is a DialogWrapper object (for really existing dialog)
You may read more detailed description of 2-level WindowSpecification concept in this answer.
I will move it into the docs with coming pywinauto 0.6.0 (a bit later).