How to change proxy setting in Windows from script?

Question

I've implemented a scraper that uses HTTPS protocol. To avoid captchas and HTTP 429 error I'm using proxies. That doesn't however guarantee no captchas, so sometimes I need to unblock a proxy entering the captcha manually. I'm using Windows, so I'm changing LAN settings from the Internet Properties > Connection tab, opening the site in the browser, and entering the captcha. This procedure is a little time consuming as I need to open menus, click mouse many times, copy/paste IP:port, etc. I wish to develop a script that does part of this job automatically: it should set the proxy IP/port, leaving me just the trouble of entering captcha.

As I have found already, this setting is located in the registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ProxyServer, and changing a registry value is not a problem. This change however doesn't take effect immediately, and I still have to open the dialog to apply the changes.

My first question is how to apply the changes automatically (something that I can do from the Python/C++/bash, etc.) The wider question is whether there is a more reliable method to solve the problem: not to touch registry explicitly but to use a tool that makes changes/applies the settings, etc?

Shaqil Ismail · Accepted Answer · 2020-11-13 11:05:22Z

0

There is a Powershell command to turn the proxy on, and then another command to set the proxy as well.

To turn on the proxy,

Set-ItemProperty -path "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" ProxyEnable -value 1

To turn off the proxy, set the value to 0 and run the Powershell command.

To set a proxy and port,

Set-ItemProperty -path "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings" ProxyServer -value (proxy to be used):(port to be used)

From a superuser article,

https://superuser.com/questions/710921/windows-7-disable-proxy-via-cmd-and-put-in-effect/944980#944980

Unfortunately, there is no easy way. As you’ve noticed, you’re missing the magic “read those settings now” command:

InternetSetOption(NULL, INTERNET_OPTION_SETTINGS_CHANGED, NULL, NULL) InternetSetOption(NULL, INTERNET_OPTION_REFRESH, NULL, NULL) Of course, you can’t just call a C function from cmd. There is, however, a (relatively) viable way to do it with PowerShell.

You can call the script to run from Python to run these commands, after changing the registry, if you want minimal change.

edited Nov 13, 2020 at 11:05

answered Oct 14, 2020 at 21:16

Shaqil Ismail

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1 Comment

Dmitry Kuzminov Over a year ago

That doesn't solve my problem. Your solution just modifies the registry (which I already do from Python), but it doesn't apply the changes to the current connection.

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