Is there any chance I could convince someone to change VixVM_CaptureScreenImage away from being a login required function?
"For security reasons, this function requires a successful call to VixVM_LoginInGuest must be made. "
VixVM_LoginInGuest reads:
"This function validates the account name and password in the guest OS. You must call this function before calling functions that perform operations on the guest OS, such as those below. Otherwise you do not need to call this function. "
"The following functions require that you call VixVM_LoginInGuest():
VixVM_RunProgramInGuest()
VixVM_ListProcessesInGuest()
VixVM_KillProcessInGuest()
VixVM_RunScriptInGuest()
VixVM_OpenUrlInGuest()
VixVM_CopyFileFromHostToGuest()
VixVM_CopyFileFromGuestToHost()
VixVM_DeleteFileInGuest()
VixVM_FileExistsInGuest()
VixVM_RenameFileInGuest()
VixVM_CreateTempFileInGuest()
VixVM_ListDirectoryInGuest()
VixVM_CreateDirectoryInGuest()
VixVM_DeleteDirectoryInGuest()
VixVM_DirectoryExistsInGuest()
VixVM_WriteVariable() when writing a VIX_GUEST_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE value.
VixVM_CaptureScreenImage() "
All the other functions make sense to restrict to logged on users. They all require vmware tools to be active to run. CaptureScreenImage does not fall into that category.
Keeping it that way "for security reasons" is incorrect because you can Ctrl-Alt-prtscreen without being logged in the guest. This will also work if you're running a guest that isn't running guest tools(eg. WINPE). You can also take screenshots during boot, when login will not work. You're not running the screencap with the user's security credentials which is the reasoning given for keeping it "secure".
What about the case of a bug check inside the guest. Then there is no way to validate the user/password. Ctrl-alt-prtscreen works to get the image but I would like to be able to programatically look at the screen without having to program something to press those buttons and parse the most recent image on the desktop.
Nate
