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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Using UI elements for ...
Power Automate
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Using UI elements for different instances of the same application

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Posted on by MA-09040632-0 1
I was trying to encrypt multiple excel files, by looping through them, and pressing the UI elements that I captured, however this worked only for the first file (from which the UI elements where captured).
Does this mean that UI elements work only with the same application instance they were captured from?
I'm getting the following error: " Failed to press button, failed to get window"
Screenshot 2026-04-09 094304.png
Categories:
Power Automate Desktop
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  • Suggested answer
    rezarizvii Profile Picture
    rezarizvii 352 on at
    Hi, hope you are doing well.
     
    Each time you open a new file, it creates a new window instance / handle. Your captured UI element still points to the old window which is why PAD can’t find it anymore.
     
    To fix this, you must attach to the correct Excel instance each loop.
    • Re-capture UI elements with:
      • Window title contains (not exact match)
    • Or use wildcards (if file name changes per loop)
     
     
     
    Reza M. Rizvi
    Reza M. Rizvi
    LinkedIn  |  Email
    If this solved your issue, please mark it as ✅ Accepted Answer. If it helped, feel free to give it a 🩷 Like!

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