# How can I suppress popups on Windows during File.exists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [April 29, 2008, 10:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-suppress-popups-on-windows-during-file-exists/136220 "2008-04-29T22:36:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Landon](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Landon)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2008, 10:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-suppress-popups-on-windows-during-file-exists/136220/1 "2008-04-29T22:36:06Z")
I apologize if this is a double post - I subscribed through the ruby- lang web page, but didn’t get any email back, then sent mail to subscribe the manual way…same thing - no confirmation of response - then I emailed the post. First, the real problem I’m trying to solve is the enumeration of all the valid drives on a Windows machine without ending up with windows popups flying. Related to this objective, I need to do it in a way which is is most compatible with both pure ruby and JRuby in a single code base. Finally, this ruby code cannot be interactive or create an interactive situation…it has to run unattended. What I’m finding is that on different windows machines, I’ll get various kinds of popups depending upon whether the drive doesn’t exist or has no media in it. For example, on a windows machine with no floppy in the drive, if I go to irb and type: > File.exists?(“a:”) I will get a Windows popup that has the title: Windows - No Disk The contents of the popup says: "Exception Processing Message c0000013 Parameters 75b6bf9c 4 75b6bf9c 75b6bf9c If I cancel the popup, it comes back once more. If I cancel it a 2nd time, it finally returns to Ruby and the irb prompt. Second variation on the problem is if I try to access something on the CD-ROM assigned to D: but there is nothing in the D: drive. Again, in irb, if I type: > File.exists?(“d:”) I will get a different kind of popup. This one’s title says "ruby.exe - No Disk" and the contents say “There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive D:” If I put a begin/rescue around the File.exists? call, rescue is never executed, so no exception is being thrown. So, several questions come out of these experiments: 1. Is there an alternate, standard way to enumerate drives on a windows machine using Ruby? 2. Is there a way to suppress these windows popups or alternatively have Ruby throw an exception in these cases? 3. any other ideas? Any help on overcoming these issues in a standard, Ruby way would be very appreciated. Thanks, Landon ---
**Author:** ![Landon](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Landon)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2008, 4:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-suppress-popups-on-windows-during-file-exists/136220/2 "2008-04-30T04:44:57Z")
Hi, Landon wrote: > I apologize if this is a double post - I subscribed through the ruby- > lang web page, but didn’t get any email back, then sent mail to > subscribe the manual way…same thing - no confirmation of response - > then I emailed the post. > > First, the real problem I’m trying to solve is the enumeration of all > the valid drives on a Windows machine without ending up with windows > popups flying. > > Related to this objective, I need to do it in a way which is is most > compatible with both pure ruby and JRuby in a single code base. > Finally, this ruby code cannot be interactive or create an interactive > situation…it has to run unattended. > > What I’m finding is that on different windows machines, I’ll get > various kinds of popups depending upon whether the drive doesn’t exist > or has no media in it. > > For example, on a windows machine with no floppy in the drive, if I go > to irb and type: > > > File.exists?(“a:”) > > I will get a Windows popup that has the title: > > Windows - No Disk > > The contents of the popup says: "Exception Processing Message > c0000013 Parameters 75b6bf9c 4 75b6bf9c 75b6bf9c > > If I cancel the popup, it comes back once more. If I cancel it a 2nd > time, it finally returns to Ruby and the irb prompt. > > Second variation on the problem is if I try to access something on the > CD-ROM assigned to D: but there is nothing in the D: drive. Again, > in irb, if I type: > > > File.exists?(“d:”) > > I will get a different kind of popup. This one’s title says "ruby.exe > > - No Disk" and the contents say “There is no disk in the drive. Please > insert a disk into drive D:” > > If I put a begin/rescue around the File.exists? call, rescue is never > executed, so no exception is being thrown. > > So, several questions come out of these experiments: > > 1. Is there an alternate, standard way to enumerate drives on a > windows machine using Ruby? > 2. Is there a way to suppress these windows popups or alternatively > have Ruby throw an exception in these cases? > 3. any other ideas? > > Any help on overcoming these issues in a standard, Ruby way would be > very appreciated. Try with win32ole: require ‘win32ole’ drive\_types = { 0 =\> “Unknown type of drive”, 1 =\> “Removable drive”, 2 =\> “Fixed drive”, 3 =\> “Network drive”, 4 =\> “CD-ROM drive”, 5 =\> “RAM Disk” } oFS = WIN32OLE.new(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”) oDrives = oFS.Drives oDrives.each() do |x| puts “drive:#{x.DriveLetter}, type:#{drive\_types[x.DriveType]}, ready:#{x.IsReady}” end Regards, Park H. ---
**Author:** ![Landon](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Landon)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 6:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-suppress-popups-on-windows-during-file-exists/136220/3 "2008-05-01T18:40:31Z")
Thanks for the info, Park. One of my requirements is that the solution be portable between Ruby and JRuby, which is why I was attempting to do drive detection with File.exists? The JRuby guys have had implementing win32ole on their list for about a year: [http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/JRUBY-191](http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/JRUBY-191) but it hasn’t made its way up the priority list high enough to be addressed. Anyway, thanks for the win32ole method of doing this - I’m sure that will come in handy. On Apr 29, 8:44 pm, Heesob P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: Try with win32ole: * * * ---
**Author:** ![Landon](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@Landon](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Landon)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2008, 10:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-can-i-suppress-popups-on-windows-during-file-exists/136220/4 "2008-05-01T22:58:36Z")
On Thu, May 1, 2008 at 11:40 AM, Landon [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On Apr 29, 8:44 pm, Heesob P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > Try with win32ole: > > * * * What versions of Windows and Ruby are you using. I don’t get this behavior with 1.8.6-p114 on Windows XP. irb(main):003:0\> File.exists?(‘a:’) =\> false irb(main):004:0\> File.exists?(‘z:’) # cd-rom =\> false irb(main):005:0\> File.exists?(‘s:’) # network drive =\> true