MT working with other programs

I am sorry if this information is already available elsewhere, but there is so much info about MT, so I ask it here:

I want to use MT together with some programs on my computer. That means that I need MT to write some data to my HD. Then MT should instruct my computer (windows) to start a program, that reads those data, and at the end write the results on my HD. MT should be able to check whether those results are available, read them and do something with it.

Is this possible with MT?
Thanks for your answer.

See #import preprocessor function. In the manual they say you can import dll file. Never tried but will in the near future and will get back with details.

I am not a programmer I just cut and paste. I do know that you can write a log file and then open it with notepad all called from inside MT4. I never could figure out how to close notepad or send commands to it from MT4. Below is a script file that I got from Metaquotes. I know it opens notepad. It was the basis of what I put in my test EA. This script may be a start.

Thanks, both of you. If I can call a DLL from MT, then my problems are solved.

A great place for this kind of stuff is here:

http://www.metatrader.info/index.php

Plenty of examples of this kind of thing ...

Thanks, that seems to be a good source of info for DLL's.

BTW (new question): It looks to me, that only www.alpari-idc.com is a broker with MT and with enough historical data to backtest indicators. Or am I wrong and are there many others with the same resouces?

You can import Alpari's historical data into MT4 independant of which broker you use as a data feed, but yes Alpari is the only free place I know of with historical data available for download.