Flash player changes & their impact upon this tutorial:
Before we begin users should note that Macromedia altered the access EXEC has to the system to prevent malicious coders from causing trouble. Executables must now exist within a specific directory. Read this article at Macromedia's help site for information about where to put your executable in order for it to comply with these security restrictions.

These changes nullify the usefulness of the old version of this tutorial somewhat. The "start" executable which this tutorial relied upon resides in the Windows directory and, as such, can't be made to comply with Macromedia's directory structure security requirements. For Windows systems you can however create a batch file (.bat) which invokes the start executable, then put this batch file in the correct directory. For Mac systems you can use Apple Script in the same manner. Both of these are mentioned at the link Macromedia help article above but not discussed in any detail.

This tutorial now provides an example of using a Windows batch file to execute files from locations other than the 'fscommand' directory. Windows users, grab this Flash MX source file and take a look. If someone wants to send me a working Apple Script example via email, I'll post it here too.

The old version of this tutorial (who's methods cannot be applied in any version of the Flash standalone player above Flash 5) has been moved to the Archives area of the Tutorial section; see the Tutorials index for a link to it if you need it.