WINAUTOMATION vs POWER AUTOMATE DESKTOP

[douglasabreu]

There is so much talk about ui/ux design, but you can't help but love the simplicity and objectivity of the old java-style interface of good old winautomation. Microsoft bought and supposedly modernized the interface. The delivery of the PAD experience is so ghastly that it makes me believe that all the euphoria about ui/ux design will change your path back to simplicity.

We don't want a modern interface with a raytrace look, but something that is simple and works well like the wonderful winautomation.

I wonder what the team that developed this program over the years must be thinking when they look at the PAD, "what have they done to our son?"

It must be an order from above, MS didn't buy winautomation, but killed it.

RETURN WINATUTOMATION AND YOU WILL MAKE MUCH MORE SUCCESS

I know my words will never affect any department of this giant company, but I make a point of writing so new ones can know about this true story.

Below is the most advanced RPA interface of all time. And it will be for many years.

[maciejewski]

totally agree

i like WA more than PAD especially local triggers (without internet connections)

now i find VisualCron software and ..... we will see 

[dgabbott]

I have been using WinAutomation since version 4.x (over 7 years) and feel this is one of the very best tools of its kind ever.  While optimistic and impressed with what Microsoft has does so far with PowerAutomate it is not the same. 

I am responding to comment on what I am observing in my evaluation of Power Automate.  I am evaluating PowerAutomate Desktop and Cloud Version with existing scripts that I have brought over using the PowerAutomate Migration Tool.

Overall the migration tool does a great job and coverts WA Scripts 100% to WinAutomation.  I am doing testing with a script that uses an excel worksheet as input (thousands of rows, makes API calls (2-3 per row), parses JSON results and updates an On-Prem SQL database.

PowerAutomate desktop performs signifcantly slower than the same script running on WinAutomation on the same machine. 

PowerAutomate version is throwing exceptions that I will eventually resolve, but more difficult to debug in Power environment.

Last, and of greatest concern is the cost of running scripts.  According to everything we have read, the standard Pro level license only permits 5,000 calls (API, SQL, HTTP requests) per day.  I understand the logic of this (but do not feel the current pricing model is reasonable) for the Cloud Edition, but do not understand why these limits are being imposed on the PowerAutomate DeskTop edition.   Reason being, all of the I/O is happening on-premise (SQL, API Calls, HTTP requests, Data Storage) so why are these limits being counted against the daily quota?

For this reason, and being non-profit, we have no choice other than begin evaluating other solutions, VisualCron included as noted previously in this thread by another user.

C'mon Microsoft, you acquired a great tool and platform that is allowing organization to perform a vast array of automation tasks.  The technology is robust, secure and based entirely on the Microsoft platform. 

Even if you do not ever enhance or upgrade WinAutomation beyond it's current version and capabilities, it will continue to add value to so many of us.  Please consider making WinAutomation available through the PowerAutomate license agreement and allow us to use this wonderful tool as an alternative to PowerAutomate or re-consider the limits (5,000 calls per day) for PowerAutomate Desktop. 

We have developed several scripts that our organization has come to depend on and some of these scripts will make 20,000 calls per execution.  Given the PowerAutomate pricing model based, we will have to discontinue the use of automation in favor of manual process operation.  Isn't the point of using robots to reduce the administrative costs associated with manual work?  Based on this pricing model for PowerAutomate, it will be very difficult to justify the cost of automating tasks as we have done in the past.

[maciejewski]

exactly!

i want to use my hardware without stupid limits

now i will test VisualCron 

[3TA]

I couldnt agree more on these points.
WinAutomation is FAR faster than PAD. Its designer interface reduced cognitive overhead. PAD designer is awful. It is slow, everything looks the same and there is zero customisation allowed. A truly horrible and hostile experience. As for the cost issue, I will call it for what it is: a giant scam. Lets hope nobody pirates the WinAutomation platform and forks it into a new lease of life. That would be terrible.

[ApexOrigin]

So what's the verdict on VisualCron?  Does it have a migration tool of any kind from WinAutomation?

[momlo]

Hi @dgabbott 

I support what you wrote about WinAutomation on GUI, however You got me thinking here:

why these limits are being imposed on the PowerAutomate DeskTop edition

or re-consider the limits (5,000 calls per day) for PowerAutomate Desktop. 

Where did you read PAD has limits for using actions within the PAD? I haven't seen anything on this.

Or are You writing about how you can launch PAD flow only 5k times a day (this was increased to larger number some time ago if i remember)

So if I have PAD flow that opens excel with 100k rows and calls 1 web API using built-in PAD action - there should be no limits on PAD side and it would call the service 100k times without any limits.

If you are saying about limits in Power Automate cloud flow that calls the web API from cloud, not desktop - then ok, for large-scale flows, we can buy a "per flow" license, if I remember correctly 500$ per 5 flows, which allows that flow to use 200k API calls.

But isn't that extra functionality to what WinAutomation offered, or not? - the ability to run those calls in the cloud and in parallel instead of sequentially in desktop flow.

I'm asking as I did not use the WInAutomation service, so I don't know if they had the ability to run cloud flows and if that was included in the license.

I'm really curious to know how your flow are architectured by the migration tool - maybe it did not do a great? 

Love the simple WinAutoamtion GUI thought all the way 🙂

[wgrfeq35]

im still on WinAutomation!

PAD is unusable for us. Slow, many limits, no local scheduler, cloud BS services and more

There is VisualCron or AutoMate what we need to test.

[3TA]

Cloud flows are just API calls in essence. You could do as many API calls as you liked from WA, only limited by the endpoint limits (and even then, if you exceed those you can usually just buy your way to where you need to be). Cloud Flows are a handy interface for making it low code no code granted. WA was also able to run several processes in parallel - you were only really limited by your machines spec. It was far more empowering than PAD which owns all your work. If they decide to remove it, you are stuffed. Looks like they might have decided to disable WA permanently with a licensing tweak. Effectively putting all work in WA beyond reach. Just like that. No warning. 

[3TA]

Can I ask what licensing model you are using for WA?

[douglasabreu · Accepted solution]

it is still possible to use winautomation follow the steps below:

1 create an account here

(in this process you will create an email .onmicrosoft.com and a password, at the end you do not need to pay, close the screen, you will use the 3 month trial)

2 login here

(then you need to go to the my flows option and activate the trial desktop flows "Robotic process automation (RPA) - attended") you will need this, after activating you should see it as shown in the image below)

3 download old winautomation here
(when installing choose login option by Microsoft Power Automate)

recently i had a problem with login, it seems the authentication method broke and microsoft is not aware, i contacted support, and it is in progress. I ask friends to do this test and tell us if they can correctly open winautomation. It occurred to me that even doing everything right, in the end, the winatuomation screen is grayed out and I can't access the program's interface. I also believe it could be an update to my windows 10, some Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable, or something like that, so I ask you to test and report it.

I hope I have helped the community on how to access the magnificent, splendid, fantastic WINAUTOMATION!

[Kane11]

I just followed all of your steps and have the same result: grey screen and cannot access the interface.
The program loads to the license screen and says my license type is "undefined" and the key is blank.

[douglasabreu]

Vou escrever no meu idioma.

Eu tentei por muito tempo sem sucesso, e fui orientado a abrir um suporte técnico, segue este caminho e relate seu problema, um presente virá 😍