Open 3rd party Application with Python

Question

I am on Windows XP and have a 3rd party application that I want to be able to open using a Python script. How do I go about doing it?

from win32com.client import Dispatch
mySuite = Dispatch("TestSuite.Application")

throws an error

File "C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\pythonwin\pywin\framework\scriptutils.py", line 312, in RunScript
exec codeObject in __main__.__dict__
File "C:\Documents and Settings\Script1.py", line 2, in <module>
mySuite = Dispatch("TestSuite.Application")
File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\__init__.py", line 95, in Dispatch
dispatch, userName = dynamic._GetGoodDispatchAndUserName(dispatch,userName,clsctx)
File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py", line 98, in _GetGoodDispatchAndUserName
return (_GetGoodDispatch(IDispatch, clsctx), userName)
File "C:\Python26\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py", line 78, in _GetGoodDispatch
IDispatch = pythoncom.CoCreateInstance(IDispatch, None, clsctx, pythoncom.IID_IDispatch)
com_error: (-2147221005, 'Invalid class string', None, None)

Any pointers? Thanks.

Answer 1

Looks like the TestSuite.Application COM class has not been registered -- try opening it in, say, VBScript, to verify, and it should also fail. In which case maybe you can fix it with regsvr32.exe or similar tools.