Opening a Dos window

[prophit]

Wanted to know how to go about opening certain programs using php.
For example the Dos window. Along with maybe IE and Firefox.
Working on a web-based tool and need to be able to telnet into certain devices.
I have been reding the exec manual trying to see if i can figure out myself. Am I on the right track?
Thanks for the help!!

[bathurst_guy]

PHP to open programs? Do you mean on the client or the server? Client = Impossible Server = purpose? You can run shell commands from PHP...

[prophit]

Well i wanted to run telnet and ping commands from the dos prompt. Im using a windows 2k3 server with iis6 and php5. I guess i could do the commands from ther server and just output the results to the php page. Any ideas or tips to get me started.

[felgall]

You can't install DOS on Windows 2k3 and so it is impossible to get a DOS prompt to display there. The only windows versions that ran on DOS were 95, 98, SE, and ME all of the others (NT, 2000, XP, 2003) are based on Microsoft OS/2 rather than on Microsoft DOS. You might be able to get PHP to open a command prompt on the server but unless you are viewing the web page using the actual server itself then you will never see the prompt and if you are running from that computer it is easier to just open a command prompt yourself.

[aussie girl]

You can use PHP to open commands such as ping, ipconfig etc, on Window 2003 server.. if someone wants to test it and let me know if it works
Ping Test (http://aussie-girl.isa-geek.net:9000/commands.php)