The Dell KACE K1000 Systems Management appliance offers the option to define custom device actions that will start a remote session or execute custom commands like ping etc. Most of these actions only work with Internet Explorer since they use ActiveX.

This article describes a custom solution that can launch the device actions from the most common browsers available for Microsoft Windows.

The download is available here Download, it is a KACE K1000 script (6.4 SP2) for Windows that can be imported into a K1000 appliance. Download the script and copy it to the clientdrop share of the K1000 and import it into the K1000. From there the script can be deployed to all the Windows computers from where the device action(s) shall be executed.

If a dedicated Remote Control Software like UltraVNC Viewer is required on those PCs that Software must be deployed separately. Built in commands like mstsc, ping etc. do not require a separate installation.

This is an example of a custom action for the UltraVNC Viewer in the K1000:

K1000DeviceAction://C:/Program Files (x86)/uvnc bvba/UltraVNC/vncviewer@exe@KACE_HOST_IP

K1000DeviceAction:// is a pseudo protocol being created by the script on the computers the script gets deployed to. It makes the browser accept custom commands since it simulates a custom protocol.

C:/Program Files (x86)/uvnc bvba/UltraVNC/vncviewer is the path to the UltraVNC Viewer including the filename of the file to execute without the extension .exe. Make sure to use / instead of \ in the path, otherwise the action will not work.

exe is the Extension of the file to execute

KACE_HOST_IP is a K1000 device action variable for the remote computer's IP address

@ is a separation character allowing the script to generate the command(s) to execute.

The common pattern for the action is: K1000DeviceAction://Path/FileToExecute@FileType@Parameter(s),  any other device action can be created using this pattern.

An action running a ping looks like this: K1000DeviceAction://cmd@exe@"/k ping KACE_HOST_IP"

Opening a Windows Explorer showing the content of C$ on a remote computer can be done using: K1000DeviceAction://cmd@exe@"/k net use \\KACE_HOST_IP\c$ && explorer \\KACE_HOST_IP\c$"

Whenever more than 1 parameter  is required for the device action like in the example above, make sure to include the parameters in quotation marks:

"/k net use \\KACE_HOST_IP\c$ && explorer \\KACE_HOST_IP\c$"

In the example above I have only used explorer but not explorer.exe, because otherwise the K1000 Website will return en error. There seems to be a hardcoded check for .exe in the K1000.

On the computers where the device action shall be executed popups must be allowed for the K1000 Website in the browser settings.

The solution has been tested with Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 running MS Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Firefox.

Here are some screenshots showing how it looks like running the action from  Microsoft Edge:

NOTE: This is a custom solution that is not officially supported by Dell Software Support !