basically using autoit, what happens is that IE windows pops up, and autoit clicks on stuff, and can control it and so on.
what i'd like is a way to hide the browser and still let autoit do it's magic. the browser should not be visible in taskbar or system tray but should be visible as a browser.exe in process window.
autoit solution works for me, but its very annoying that only IE is controllable, and IE must popup each time autoit code runs.
There's a bunch of functions for IE that will let you do things even with hidden browser:
_IECreate, _IELinkClickByIndex so on so forth. The first one has option to start window hidden and then you just play it. Just takes a bit of time to master this :) Check all commands starting with _IE and you should find what you're looking for. It's a bit more complicated then sending simple mouse clicks in right areas but it's a bit more fool proof if you write it correctly (checking for errors etc).
Perl, Ruby and Python all have a module available called "Mechanize", designed to automate interaction with websites. This is a Ruby example: http://mechanize.rubyforge.org/mechanize/GUIDE_rdoc.html