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Using SHDocVw.InternetExplorer and WebClient.DownloadFile

I'm using SHDocVw.InternetExplorer. I have a screen scraper app. The site I am scraping requires a username/password to login. Once logged in, there is a file I want to download. WebClient.DownloadFile works great for a site/page that does not require authentication. When I try to download my file from this secure site, I get this: <script>alert('Please login first before continuing'); window.location.href = '/XXXConnect/public/Login';</script>.

Can I pass along the authentication credentials from SHDocVw.InternetExplorer to WebClient?

Nasir Razzaq

You will have to programmatically login to the site, get the authentication cookie and then send that cookie with a httpwebrequest object to download the file

http://m4sh3d.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/login-to-website-and-download-file.html

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4699938/how-to-download-the-file-using-httpwebrequest-and-httpwebresponse-classcookies

HLRosenberger

ASKER

You have pointed me to something similiar in the past. I create the code from the first code exactly. This does not work. The WEB site that I'm trying to download the file from has a login page. I do not see how passing the username/password (see below) as post data accomplishes the same thing as logging in via a WEB page where a username and password is entered. In the downloadFile function, I still get the same error message as I specified in my original post.

Dim postData As String = "user_name=" & uid & "&user_password=" & pwd

Nasir Razzaq

Try this approach of logging in and see if it works

http://vbcity.com/blogs/jatkinson/archive/2009/12/12/programmatically-entering-and-data-using-the-webbrowser-control.aspx

Then try to get the authentication cookie and use it with httpwebrequest

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/650536/c-sharp-webrequest-using-webbrowser-cookie

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HLRosenberger

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HLRosenberger

ASKER

The code I found at the link I provided works.