Automating Selenium driver updates with VBA

Selenium is a suite of tools for automating web browsers. In other words, Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that. Boring web-based administration tasks can (and should) also be automated as well.

If you want to automate some projects with Selenium on Chrome or Edge browsers with Python, .NET, VBA or C# updating the latest driver manually can be very daunting task. Therefore, the below sample of the code (class module) checks the latest version of the Selenium package installed and version of the browser and it downloads the matching version of the driver with API release notes.

Please make sure to enable the below libraries, and note there is no need for Selenium Type Library as I am using the late binding Object method that will remove the need of installing or checking each user's current settings.

VBA libraries

Now create a class module and paste code below. Feel free to change the code for your needs.

VBA libraries

The code to be pasted to the class module:

Option Explicit
 
Private ChromeDriver As Object
Private EdgeDriver  As Object
Private SeleniumFolder As String
Private TempZipFile As String
Private ChromeInit  As Boolean, EdgeInit As Boolean
 
Public Enum dType
    Chrome
    Edge
End Enum
 
Public Property Get SeleniumFolderPath() As String
    SeleniumFolderPath = SeleniumFolder
End Property
 
Public Property Let SeleniumFolderPath(ByVal FolderPath As String)
    SeleniumFolder = FolderPath
End Property
 
Public Sub UpdateDriver(ByVal DriverType As dType)
 
    Dim URLPath     As String
    Dim DriverVer   As String
    Dim ChromeVer   As String
    Dim Doc         As New HTMLDocument
 
    ChromeVer = CreateObject("WScript.Shell").RegRead("HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Chrome\BLBeacon\version")
    ChromeVer = Trim(Left(ChromeVer, Len(ChromeVer) - 3))
 
    Select Case DriverType
        Case dType.Chrome
            URLPath = "https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/LATEST_RELEASE_" & ChromeVer
        Case dType.Edge
            URLPath = "https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/webdriver/"
    End Select
 
    With New MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
        .Open "GET", URLPath
        .send
        DriverVer = .responseText
    End With
 
    DownloadUpdatedDriver DriverVer, DriverType
    ExtractZipAndCopy DriverType
 
End Sub
 
Private Sub InitializeDriver(ByVal DriverType As dType)
    Select Case DriverType
        Case dType.Chrome
            Set ChromeDriver = CreateObject("Selenium.ChromeDriver")
            ChromeDriver.Start
            ChromeInit = TRUE
        Case dType.Edge
            Set EdgeDriver = CreateObject("Selenium.EdgeDriver")
            EdgeDriver.Start
            EdgeInit = TRUE
    End Select
End Sub
 
Private Function getCurrentVersion(Doc As HTMLDocument, DriverType As dType) As String
 
    Dim div         As HTMLDivElement
 
    Select Case DriverType
        Case dType.Chrome
            For Each div In Doc.getElementsByTagName("p")
                If div.innerText Like "Latest stable release*" Then
                    With New VBScript_RegExp_55.RegExp
                        .Pattern = "ChromeDriver\s([\d\.]+)\b"
                        getCurrentVersion = .Execute(div.innerText)(0).SubMatches(0)
                        Exit Function
                    End With
                End If
            Next
        Case dType.Edge
            With New VBScript_RegExp_55.RegExp
                .Pattern = "Version:\s([\d\.]+)"
                For Each div In Doc.getElementsByClassName("module")(0).getElementsByTagName("p")
                    If .test(div.innerText) Then
                        getCurrentVersion = .Execute(div.innerText)(0).SubMatches(0)
                        Exit Function
                    End If
                Next
            End With
    End Select
 
End Function
 
Private Sub DownloadUpdatedDriver(ByVal CurrVersion As String, DriverType As dType)
 
    Dim URLPath     As String
    Dim FileStream  As New ADODB.Stream
 
    Select Case DriverType
        Case dType.Chrome
            URLPath = "https://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/" & CurrVersion & "/chromedriver_win32.zip"
        Case dType.Edge
            Kill Environ$("LocalAppData") & "\SeleniumBasic\Driver_Notes\*.*"
            URLPath = "https://msedgedriver.azureedge.net/" & CurrVersion & "/edgedriver_win64.zip"
    End Select
 
    With New MSXML2.XMLHTTP60
        .Open "GET", URLPath
        .send
        FileStream.Open
        FileStream.Type = adTypeBinary
        FileStream.Write .responseBody
        FileStream.SaveToFile TempZipFile, adSaveCreateOverWrite
        FileStream.Close
    End With
 
End Sub
 
Private Sub ExtractZipAndCopy(ByVal DriverType As dType)
 
    Dim FileName    As String
    Dim FSO         As Object
    Dim DriverFound As Boolean
    Dim oShell      As New shell
 
    Select Case DriverType
        Case dType.Chrome: FileName = "\chromedriver.exe"
        Case dType.Edge: FileName = "\edgedriver.exe"
    End Select
 
    Set FSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    If (FSO.FileExists(SeleniumFolder & FileName)) Then
        Kill SeleniumFolder & FileName
        DriverFound = FALSE
        While DriverFound = FALSE
            If (Not FSO.FileExists(SeleniumFolder & FileName)) Then
                DriverFound = TRUE
                Sleep 1000
            End If
        Wend
    End If
 
    oShell.Namespace(SeleniumFolder).CopyHereoShell.Namespace(TempZipFile).Items
    If DriverType = dType.Edge Then
        Name SeleniumFolder & "msedgedriver.exe" As SeleniumFolder & "edgedriver. exe"
    End If
    DriverFound = FALSE
    While DriverFound = FALSE
        If (FSO.FileExists(SeleniumFolder & FileName)) Then
            DriverFound = TRUE
            Sleep 1000
        End If
    Wend
    Set FSO = Nothing
 
    Kill TempZipFile
 
End Sub
 
Private Sub Class_Initialize()
 
    SeleniumFolder = Environ$("LocalAppData") & "\SeleniumBasic\"
    TempZipFile = Environ$("LocalAppData") & "\Temp\WebDriver.zip"
 
End Sub

Let me know if you have some difficulties or questions.