Before you write a single line of automation, there’s one question that decides everything:
How does this program want to be automated?
Some programs have real controls you can click by name. Some speak COM. Some only show up to UI Automation. And some are just pixels.
Guess wrong and you can spend an afternoon fighting the wrong approach.
How about you? Have you ever picked the hard way to automate something, only to find an easy way later?
DiscoveryTool answers the question in a few seconds. 😊
Watch DiscoveryTool in action on YouTube
Drag the Crosshair, Get a Ranked List
Drag the crosshair and drop it on the program you want to automate.
DiscoveryTool checks which approaches that window supports and lists them, simplest first.
Each row links to where you can learn that approach, so your next step is one click away.
9 Ways to Automate, Scored for Simplicity
- Win32 menus: classic File / Edit menus
- Win32 controls: buttons and fields with real names
- Status bar: read text from the bottom of the window
- Image search: find things by how they look
- COM: talk to Excel, Word, Outlook and friends directly
- Rufaydium: for browsers
- Acc: the older accessibility layer
- UI Automation: modern apps
- Window messages: the last resort
Admin and Virtual Window Warnings
Two things quietly break automation, and DiscoveryTool flags both:
- Admin Mode Required: the program runs as admin, so your script must too
- Virtual Window Detected: remote desktop, a virtual machine, Citrix, or a Zoom or Teams share, where normal tools can’t see inside
Stuck? Send Us the Report
Click Share and DiscoveryTool writes up what it found in an email to our team.
Pick Just Share Data, or I need Help and describe what you’re trying to do.
There’s also a button to launch the Windows Steps Recorder, so you can capture exactly what you click.
What’s in the Download
- DiscoveryTool as AutoHotkey v2 source, version 1.2.1 (updated 2024/11/25)
- The UIA and Acc libraries it uses, in the lib folder
Keep the lib and res folders next to the script.
Get DiscoveryTool
DiscoveryTool is $4.99.
One thing I’ve learned: the easy way to automate a program is usually there. You just have to know where to look.
Drop the crosshair and let it tell you. 🚀
Joe
