Now that KiX can pre-tokenize/encrypt/shrink the scripts, I think it should also be able to embed the script into a single EXE. I envision a lean EXE with the tokenizer, debug, keyword lists, etc. stripped out to make the resultant EXE as small as possible. There are lots of good reasons to make the EXE as small as possible, but mainly because bandwidth is a terrible thing to waste.

I first made this suggestion on SL's beta forum Thoughts: 4.50 - tokenizer (external app?) but since it is slightly off topic there, and since it did not generate the interest there that I had hoped for, started a separate thread here.

There are already a couple of ways (KiXScripts Editor and KiXCrypt) to put everything into a single EXE, but they mostly rely on temporary files. I believe also, that there is a tempfileless version of KiXCrypt in the works.

A single EXE would simplify distribution of applets, ease versioning, and eliminate the number of round trips on searching for the external .KX file. It would also ease the deployment of GPO based scripts which don't take well to external pathing.

The implementation of MakeEXE should be such that it could be scripted on the command line or by API so that KiXScripts Editor could choose to leverage this approach over their existing one.

On the topic of security, I recognize that this would still be 'security by ignorance' and that nobody should misconstrue this as "Secure". To that end, I point you to Ruud's comments within the discussion Thoughts: 4.50 - INCLUDE (his first reply)where he says "In general, you should never, ever, put truly sensitive information in any shape or form within the users security context. Whether or not passwords in scripts are truly sensitive depends on your specific situation."


Edited by Lonkero (2004-01-31 03:37 AM)
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