[draceplace]

GOAL- User installation of app on various MS OS (NT and up hopefully) using WIN ZIP Self Extractor.
- I need user to email me info about their PC.
- I can determine this information with a dos command put it in a text file or into an outlook email.

The Problem-if they are using a web based email (instead of Outlook) my install (actually the mailto command) will start the Outlook 'configuration' since outlook is not configured. This isn't good users will be confused.

The Solution I want - to be able to detect if outlook/outlook express has been configured (for this user??).

If not configured present a .txt file with instructions to use their other email services. If configured fill out the email for them (I already know how to do this part).

Questions, Solutions, Ideas appreciated.

[Regicide]

I'm not sure how to detect if outlook is configured, but I do have a few other solutions. First, you could always make a website for your program. You would probably want free hosting and make sure that the server lets you use PHP, because you can make a simple email form and then mail it to you via the website. The second solution is a little harder. You could always make a mail program that comes with the program. Just have them enter their SMTP server and thenb you can send the email. Or rather than ask them for their SMTP server, get the address of a free SMTP server.

[coderitr]

See my post in this thread.

[draceplace]

Thanks both Regicide and coderitr! Both of you have given me some ideas to look into. If all else fails I am simply going to generate a txt file with instructions to copy, paste and mail it to me at xxx@yyy.com. I have some really weak users on this project and every step I could do for them would be one less future headache. I'm going to look into the web idea first.. I'm the registry info sounds like the most efficient but understanding if its the same for nt, 2k, me and xp will take some research....

[coderitr]

Okay I guess I didn't fully understand your question (or didn't read it that well ) but from what I can see you don't have to care what mail client the user is using. Using VB's MAPI controls you can send an email using whatever mail client Windows has registered as the default. You can also use SMTP to generate the mail if it's just text. Attachments may be possible -- I haven't put that much research into it. Anyway, here's some code to get you started with the MAPI thing.

   MAPIsession1.SignOn

   If mapisession1.sessionID <> 0 Then
      With mapimessages1
         .sessionid = MapiSession1.sessionID
         .compose 
         .recipdisplayname "YOUR NAME"
         .recipaddress = "me@myipdomain.com"
         .msgsubject = "SUBJECT"
         .msgnotetext= "Message"
         .send False
       End With

       mapisession1.signoff
   End If

I cannot take credit for this code. I found it at http://www.pscode.com but I pasted it into a vb project of my own and when the .Send method is executed, my Lotus Notes (yuk) client loads (it would prompt for a password if it were not already running) and displays the "New Mail" screen already populated with the recipient, subject line and body text. When I left out the line where "RecipDisplayName" is specified, the new mail screen that I got did not have the recipient's address so it looks like I would still have had to provide that. I did not experiment with attaching a file. Good luck.

[draceplace]

I like this! But (always a catch) if they are not using a local mail client (ie yahoo, freemail or something, a small % of users are like this) will this fire off the 'configure' application like mailto did? Will it return and error I can capture??

[coderitr]

Yes it will likely initiate a wizard maybe even Windows Internet Connection Wizard or OE's setup screen. I do not know of a way around that and I doubt that it would return an error if you cancelled out of it but try it and see. If you don't need to attach a file SMTP seems like the safest route. More at http://www.pscode.com on that too.