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I'm writing a suite of software of which one of the programs is client that connects to a server; the client performs actions of behalf of request from the server with both the client and server being windows services.
For the server I need it to store data such as user names, password (actually hashes of passwords), permission settings, etc. I don't want the information stored on our SQL server because other employees have access to it and there is a risk of information being changed, deleted, and it won't be secure for this purpose. I also don't want the data stored on the server is a file (such as a .DAT file) because again other employees have access to the server and there are the same concerns as with the SQL server.
I was trying to find a way to save information internally within the program. I've worked with embedded resources, but only to the extent of extracting an embedded Word template and saving it to folder. I'm assuming there would be a way I could extract some sort of compressed XML file, change the data I need to, and then re-embedding it using a MemoryStream so the file is never written to the HDD. Would this be a way to go? Any body know any good articles explaining the process of extracting and embedding file, changing it, and then re-embedding it?
The company is a small company and over the course of a day I'm estimating that the server service would have to do the extract/re-embedding maybe 20 times so I don't see it being very heavy on resources. However I'm open to any other ideas. My only requirements is no SQL server or local file, secure, and the data is persisted across system restarts.
Thanks in advance for any help, ideas, or suggestions anybody can provide.
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DisIsHoody wrote: My only requirements is no SQL server or local file, secure, and the data is persisted across system restarts.
How do you expect the data to be persisted if it is not written to disk somewhere? The obvious answer to this is to use an encrypted file which the server holds open with exclusive use. On startup you read the file and decrypt it into memory. Then, every time some of the data changes you re-encrypt it and write it back to the disk file. The actual format of the file is not critical but it should be fairly simple to devise a format that makes it difficult for anyone to figure out the content even if they could crack the encryption.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
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What I meant about not writting to the HDD was that it wouldn't be written to a separate file. I was hoping to file a way to write the necessary data to an embedded file. Then the data would persist it sul is technically stored on the HDD but within the assembly instead of a separate file.
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DisIsHoody wrote: I was hoping to file a way to write the necessary data to an embedded file.
But embedded where? Any file needs to exist on the disk so you have no choice but to write it there. If you are thinking of writing into the actual executable so the data is embedded there, then I do not think that is advisable unless you have a thorough understanding of the problems it may cause.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
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Yes...i was talking about embedding it in the actual program. The program is a window service so there won't be a program folder (at least it is my understanding that window services don't have an installation folder) where I can save the file. Plus since there other employees which have access to the server I'm concerned of someone either intentionally, or unintentionally, deleting the file, or affecting it other ways because they aren't aware what it is for. I've worked with embedding files within executables but I've only extracted them and saved them to the HDD. Do you know of any good articles that discuss the problems of changing files that are embedded within executables so I can weigh my options and decided best way to proceed?
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DisIsHoody wrote: i was talking about embedding it in the actual program.
Definitely a bad idea. There are lots of ways to protect the file by hiding it and using access control etc. If your organisation allows employees to go around randomly deleting files from your server then you have a management problem that needs to be addressed.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
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I agree that there is a huge management and security issues that my manager and I have been trying to change for years. However why is it such a bad idea to use embedded resources in such a way? I've used embedded resources for templates very successfully, just never had to change them once they were embedded during compilation.
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It's a bad idea because you are talking about modifying the actual service program. Get that even slightly wrong and you could lose your service.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
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I assumed there was some built in functionality in the framework that would handle all the nuances. Similar to the way there its the built in functions to allow you to get a stream to an embedded resources, I figured there was one to allow you to write to a stream that would save it to the embebbed resource.
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Not that I'm aware of, but the MSDN documentation will confirm that.
One of these days I'm going to think of a really clever signature.
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DisIsHoody wrote: My only requirements is no SQL server or local file
That implies a non-local (aka 'remote') file. Shouldn't be a problem if you have a webserver there, simply access it over SSL.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
if you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Hello !
I have an application in vb.net 2010 /sql server 2008r2
i read data from sql server to a bindingsource ( salaryBindingSource). And now i have to get records one by one from bindingsource to a webpage ( this is not my webpage , but is my job to transfer data to this webpage).I'm thinking to make this process automatic from my aplication , because there are so many records and is difficult to enter manually .
the web page has 5 textbox , 1 combobox and 1 Button.
How can i fill textboxes and combobox with current record , press automatically the button , and continue with next records .....
i need an example how can i do this ?
Thank you
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I think what you want to do is programatically "POST" data to that web-page.
I can't remember exatly how to do it, but search "create a post request programmatically" and I think you will find a solution.
Good luck.
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Thank You !
But in this example , i don't understand how to identify the textbox names in webpage , and how can i put a specific data on a textbox , and after to press the button automatically ....
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Are you binding the text boxes, and combo box with salaryBindingSource? If you are, then the button should just navigate to the next record and the data bindings take care of filling in the controls. If you could supply a code snippet of what you have done, that could be helpful 
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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Thank You !
textboxes and comboboxes are on webpage not on my application.
on my application i have this code :
For each t in salaryBindingsource
i want to put t.value1 on first textbox of webpage
i want to put t.sum on second textbox of webpage
....
....
i want to press the button on webpage
Next
so , how can i do the instructions inside for cycle ?
Thank you.
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alejx wrote: webpage not on my application
I may have misunderstood your problem. Is the webpage not something you created but you are trying to get your application to update the fields on the webpage?
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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This is not my webpage , this is the webpage of a financial institution , and my job is to get data from my application , and to put manually on this website.But there are so many records , and i'm thinking to modify my application to put data automatically ?
how can i do this ?
Thank you !
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Are you employed by this financial institution? And do they want to integrate your application and data with their site?
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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I'm thinking you are a police agent , not a programmer !?
I'm working in a partner with this institution , and my job is to declare on website some data. until now , i declare manually , so i open my program window , i get values for example : 2,3,67,90 , after i go to website , i fill the textboxes with these values and i press the button , after i get the next record and .... this work is very hard because there are 300-700 record to transfer on website manually. I want to transfer these records automatically from my program to website .
This has nothing to do with " integrate your application with their site". This is just a way to simplify my job. I'm not making something illegal with this website. Maybe i'm not clear with that i want to do ?
Anyway , thank you !
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alejx wrote: thinking you are a police agent , not a programmer
 Nope, software developer here for 20+ years and college professor
alejx wrote: is very hard because there are 300-700 record to transfer on website manually
Understandable. A consultant I once worked with went by the idea of if you have to repeat something many times, make a computer do it
The other poster made a good point and you may want to get with the person who developed the page if possible, and see what solution you can come up with.
You need to look at the fields that each control passes in the POST and mimic it with your application.
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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Ok , i make my question more simple :
Is there any way to fill 2 textboxes in a webpage from a vb.net application , and after to press a button in this webpage ,all these things automatically with some instruction on my application. for example in google.com to put "sport" and after to press "Google search" button automatically with instruction from my vb.net application ?
If you help me with this , i know what can i do in my application
Thank you.
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alejx wrote: make my question more simple
I understand your objective goal here. Best solution for you is to look into working with sending a POST as David suggested earlier. You will not need to interact with the webpage itself, but with gets invoked after the button would be clicked if there was a user.
There is no API that is going to allow your code to act as a user, i.e. entering data into text boxes, and clicking on buttons, and there's security reasons behind that.
"Any sort of work in VB6 is bound to provide several WTF moments." - Christian Graus
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thank you !
But someone shows me an application in vb.net that get data from an open Excel file and transfer them into a open webpage on IEXplorer , one by one , with a button pressed at the end. And everything was ok and he transfer about 50 records from Excel.
But he doesn't want to help me , so i have maked the question.
Anyway , Thank you !
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