Display Dynamic WAN IP address

FWIW - my problem with the custom field returning (Null) was down to my carelesness.

I have discovered that "Wan_Ip" is not the same as "WAN_IP" </facepalm>

Do you mean that you log to a file, using the Database feature?

That's right - I log to a csv file and have a spreadsheet that links to it.  I'd like to include the custom field in Bginfo's output record.

However - I'm probably going to abandon this idea (including the WAN IP address) as it's proving more trouble for me than the benefit's it would provide.

I can't run the script at boot/login time on some of the pcs. It slows the boot time considerably as the script takes much longer to complete (probably has to wait for an internet connection to be established). 

And of the three PC's I've tried so far it only works on one. The other two display a value of '(none)'. This happens even when I run the script manually after the pc has booted and the internet connection is active.  I've not been able to establish what the difference is...

I've tried it on a total of 3 PCs so far. 

On one it seems to work fine, but on the others i get  (none) where the IP address should be.

On the first PC that was giving me the hanging problem I did see the IP address once but when I restarted the PC and ran BGinfo at startup I get the (none) and the same on the third machine. 

I  guess it must be something to do with the setups as the script works OK.  I'll play with it some more when I have access to them again and see if I can identify the cause.

Another question: I use bginfo's log feature to keep track of disc space. Is there any way to add the custom WAN_IP field to the log file?

thanks.

Strange.

With the custom field defined,  if I try to preview the screen bginfo hangs, and I need to kill the process.  I can do everything else to format the output but the preview button is a show stopper.

Don't know if it's just my system - haven't tried it anywhere else but this might just stop someone else panicing in the future :)

The easiest way to do this is to create a custom field and then use a VB Script to populate this field.

1. Create a VBScript named "WAN_IP.vbs" in the same directory as your "BGInfo.exe" application. The contents of this VBScript should be:

Function WAN_IP    Set objxmlHTTP = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")    Call objxmlHTTP.open("get", "http://checkip.dyndns.org", False)    objxmlHTTP.Send()      strHTMLText = objxmlHTTP.ResponseText    Set objxmlHTTP = Nothing      If strHTMLText <> "" Then        varStart = InStr(1, strHTMLText, "Current IP Address:", vbTextCompare) + 19        If varStart Then varStop = InStr(varStart, strHTMLText,"</body>", vbTextCompare)        If varStart And varStop Then strIP = Mid(strHTMLText, varStart, varStop - varStart)    Else        strIP = "Unavailable"    End If    WAN_IP = Trim(strIP) End Function Echo WAN_IP

2. Open BGInfo and load the configuration file you are using (e.g. default.bgi). Click the "Custom..." button on the right side under the list of fields.

3. Click the "New..." button.

4. Set your identifier to "WAN_IP" and then select the "VB Script file" radio button and click the "Browse" button that is now available and select the "WAN_IP.vbs" script.

5. Click the "OK" buttons till you get back to the original interface for the BGInfo application.

6. Scroll down the list of fields until you find the "WAN_IP" field in the list, select it and click the "<- Add" button.

7. Click the "Preview" button and if all goes well, you should now see the WAN IP address on your desktop.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you run into any issues.