'Automating Edge Browser using VBA without downloading Selenium

I had the Automation tools which are written considering the IE. Now, I want to re-write those same tools this time by considering the "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.

Can someone please help me on Automating the Edge browser without downloading/installing other softwares or Web drivers?

Thanks, Kanthi

Solution 1:^[1]

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.

Solution 2:^[2]

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.

What You Need to Do

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 following KBs installed: KB5011487. Or simply update your Windows and this should be automatically installed as well. 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.

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.

Sample Code 1 Sample Code 2

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. Additionally, just like Method 1, its life depends on how long Microsoft is going to keep IE mode for Edge, which for now will last to 2029. Beyond that Microsoft may or may no longer support IE mode.

Solution 3:^[3]

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()

Solution 4:^[4]

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 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

    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

Sources

This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Overflow and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Source: Stack Overflow

Solution	Source
Solution 1	Yu Zhou
Solution 2
Solution 3	Sonali Das
Solution 4

'Automating Edge Browser using VBA without downloading Selenium

Solution 1:[1]

Solution 2:[2]

Solution 3:[3]

Solution 4:[4]

Sources

Related Questions

Solution 1:^[1]

Solution 2:^[2]

Solution 3:^[3]

Solution 4:^[4]