Python help:Windows commands with python

[blithen]

This is the script I'm trying to use

import os
selection = raw_input("Press one to enable two disable the screen saver")
elif selection == 1:
    os.system(nircmd.exe regsetval sz "HKCU\control panel\desktop" "ScreenSaveActive" 1)
if selection == 2:
    os.system(nircmd.exe regsetval sz "HKCU\control panel\desktop" "ScreenSaveActive" 0)

It's says there's an invalid syntax with "regsetval" how do i make sure it's seeing the whole thing as one command rather then separate ones?

[Bachstelze]

http://docs.python.org/library/os.html#os.system

os.system takes a single string as argument, so:

import os
selection = raw_input("Press one to enable two disable the screen saver")
elif selection == 1:
    os.system('nircmd.exe regsetval sz "HKCU\control panel\desktop" "ScreenSaveActive" 1')
if selection == 2:
    os.system('nircmd.exe regsetval sz "HKCU\control panel\desktop" "ScreenSaveActive" 0')

You might also need to escape the blackslashes.

[blithen]

Thanks man.

[blithen]

Now it's saying that it's an invalid syntax at the first colon. Also here's the updated code, I switched from os.system, to subprocess.Popen.

import subprocess
selection = int(raw_input("Press one to enable and two disable the screen saver: ")
if selection == 1:
    subprocess.Popen('nircmd.exe regsetval sz "HKCU\control panel\desktop" "ScreenSaveActive" 1')
elif selection == 2:
    subprocess.Popen('nircmd.exe regsetval sz "HKCU\control panel\desktop" "ScreenSaveActive" 0')

[Bachstelze]

selection = int(raw_input("Press one to enable and two disable the screen saver: ")

Two opening parentheses, one closing. An editor with decent syntax highlighting would have helped you catch this.

subprocess.Popen doesn't work the same way, it takes a list of strings (the command and its arguments). If you want to use it, it's:

subprocess.Popen(['nircmd.exe', 'regsetval', 'sz', 'HKCU\\control panel\\desktop', 'ScreenSaveActive', '1'])

Or something along those lines, maybe it's a bit different on Windows.

[blithen]

Oh wow, thanks for the info, and yeah I'm downloading a text editor now that I look like a noob. >_>