Action KeyString (EXE's only)

[Morthawt]

Download link: http://morthawt.com/Action%20KeyString.zip

Action KeyString is a time saving program that lets you run programs either in normal user mode or admin mode by typing keystrings.

You use it by holding shift and then tapping the control key once and continue to type your keystring and then release shift. Internal commands are HELP EXIT ADD DELETE LIST.

ADD adds a new exe and walks you through the questions needed to store the keystring.

DELETE deletes a keystring record.

LIST shows you all your keystrings.

HELP shows you the built in keystrings.

EXIT exits the program.

For example I have set mine with CMD to run command prompt in normal user mode and CMDA to load one under admin privileges. I have various others for other system tasks. Since the program takes care of the UAC from the start when you do an admin-level keystring no UAC prompts are needed any longer, so your chosen keystring runs with full rights. Since my UAC is set by myself to require my username and password this really saves me time.

When you first run the program, do so normally. It will first spawn a small script and execute it which will then in turn delete its self upon execution. This script simply runs the exe with admin and the original exe then goes into a sleep mode waiting for the call to run a program with normal user mode rights. The newly spawned admin-level copy of the program then runs normally. This ensures your keystrings will work even when an admin-level program has focus, since the main program now has admin rights.

I self-sign my exe's so people can see if they have been tampered with, even though they don't get the nice authorized UAC screen. However if you want to see a nice authorized UAC screen when loading any exe's from myself you can install the CA certificate. This needs to be manually installed into the "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" area, it will not auto-detect the correct location. Certificate Authority link: http://morthawt.com/MorthawtCA.cer

I am still working on the program, this is a remake and enhancement of an older program I made that did the same thing. I should also mention the only keys that work are standard alphabet and standard numbers. No numeric keypad etc. Even though you are holding shift during the typing of your keystrings you should consider the number keys as numbers if you need numbers in your keystring.

I have only made the exe's available because the forum rules do not permit me to release the source code because it could be negatively manipulated into performing certain "other" functions. I cleared this in the >chat forum with a Developer who said supplying exe's is perfectly fine.

I would be interested in your feedback on this little project of mine.

Edit:

You can also add an entry for explorer.exe and for the parameter put a website so you can have keystrings such as PAYPAL or GOOGLE and it will open your default browser or open in a new tab of your already open browser

Edit 2:

I have updated it to use ini file entries for running programs in normal mode rather than creating a file each time. I have also made a few under-the-hood tweaks.

Updated today. Details are on this post: 

Edited October 4, 2013 by Morthawt

[Morthawt]

I have updated it with security and usability features.

Now you can type in a website directly, exe path directly, or select it as before.

I have now added encryption for the ini file contents. Each section is the unique KeyString, so that is directly encrypted as is, however there are a few repetitive things such as 1 or 0 for require admin or perhaps multiple entries with the same full path or  parameters etc, so I have added random salt to each value before encrypting, which obviously is stripped out upon decryption. This ensures that the actual "contents" cannot be identified, cannot be maliciously tampered with or anything else.

It has taken me all night to get these two features to work... Many bugs and issues had to be overcome to even get it to function correctly. If you find any bugs please give me as much detail as possible to help me track the issue down.

I hope you find this as useful as I do.