I have a WPF application that is designed for a touchscreen kiosk. Users will not have access to a keyboard or mouse. The application runs fine when started normally from the program icon in windows. However, when it is set up to run automatically at startup (by replacing the Windows shell using a registry key), the application does not function properly.
The application reads an XML file that lists available videos, then displays buttons to show the videos. When run in "kiosk mode," it does not seem to have access to the files in its media directory (the XML file and presumably the videos as well). I suspect that because the application is running in place of the windows explorer, it is missing resources it needs for file access that are normally loaded by windows explorer.
I have not been able to find any info on this - there is plenty of info on how to get an app to run at startup, but not much on how to make sure it will actually function in that environment. The PC is running Windows 7 Professional.
Is my assumption about the problem correct, or is it likely something else (e.g. permissions - we checked the permissions, but maybe they operate differently when you replace the windows shell?) If it is because needed resources are not loaded, does anyone have pointers on how to make sure my app loads them?
Perhaps you have file access occurring via a file dialog? This might explain a bit further. What is the minimum functionality needed to create Shell Replacement for Windows?
because you have stopped windows default running explorer.exe , your program can not get access to default xml directory therefore you should specify the complete path for example like below:
stream = File.Open(#"C:\x86\Debug\xml.xml", FileMode.OpenOrCreate);
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A WinForms program I have developed prints fine and as expected when run as an interactive user. Using the same account but as a scheduled task, the process will run correctly however it prints part of the output in the incorrect font.
The program is a label printer that prints updated pricing labels. It has an option (-s) that the Task Scheduler calls which does not present the GUI but does an update and prints. Executing this as an interactive user through run works correctly (i.e. the correct font is used).
Any clues as to what's happening here? The font that isn't printing correctly is a non-standard system font.
This runs on a server and I thought it might be due to printer redirection but I did a console logon and it worked fine as an interactive process on the console just as it does as interactive through remote desktop.
Interesting problem. Presumably, Windows doesn't load fonts into the non-interactive logon sessions in order to conserve resources.
See this answer for one approach, using the ps tool to create an interactive session when running the task.
I had a very similar issue to yours (running an application through a scheduled task would use the default font but when running locally it would find the custom font I installed) and I found a solution; On Server 2008, there is an issue where custom fonts are not registered immediately after installing for non-interactive users, whereas regular users (i.e. when running on a user actually logged in to the machine) do have the font registered immediately.
The solution that worked for me was to simply restart the machine the font was installed on and the font started working under the non-interactive accounts, as when the computer is turned on it registers correctly. It appears the font installation has a bug where it doesn't register the font correctly for non-interactive users until a reboot.
We have a WPF application that was developed on Windows 7 using VS 2010 and .NET 4.0 framework.
I have created an install package for it using the Visual Studio Installer.
When running on XP it appears to go into a bad state after using the win32 OpenFileDialog. It took me a while to track this down, as it doesn't fail right away. The dialog appears, you select the file you want to open, it opens up and is displayed on the screen. I was using it for about two minutes and then it crashed. I get the message that my program has encountered a problem and needs to close.
I can now run my application, open a file and make it crash right away, since a specific action always makes it crash. It does on any file I open, even a new one.
So I tried opening the same file without using the OpenFileDialog, I have a MRU list that I selected the file from, and it works flawlessly. I have not been able to make it crash.
Anyone experience similar behavior or have any ideas?
Since I do not have a debug environment on the XP machine I tried putting in some tracing statements within the application to write out to our log file where it is and what value some variables have. The really strange thing is that as soon as the OpenFileDialog.ShowDialog method is called all writing to our log file stops. I am just using standard file I/O and actually open, write and then close the file for every log message. This makes it difficult to debug this way, but also further supports the fact that something is gone wrong in the environment.
I have tried on four different XP machines, all with the same results.
I know this is not ideal, but my constraint is that I have a legacy application written in Clipper.
I want to launch a new, WinForms/WPF application from inside the application (to ease transition). This legacy application written in Clipper launches using:
SwpRunCmd("C:\MyApp\MyBat.bat",0)
The batch file contains something like this command:
C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\iexplore "http://QASVR/MyApp/AppWin/MyCompany.MyApp.AppWin.application#MyCompany.MyApp.AppWin.application"
It is launching a WinForms/WPF app that is we deploy via ClickOnce. Everything has been going well until we introduced WPF into the application. We were able to easily launch from the legacy application.
Since we have introduced WPF, however, we have the following behavior. If we launch via the Clipper application first, we get an exception when launching the application. The error text is:
The type initializer for 'System.Windows.FrameworkElement' threw an exception.
at System.Windows.FrameworkElement..ctor()
at System.Windows.Controls.Panel..ctor()
at System.Windows.Controls.DockPanel..ctor()
at System.Windows.Forms.Integration.AvalonAdapter..ctor(ElementHost hostControl)
at System.Windows.Forms.Integration.ElementHost..ctor()
at MyCompany.MyApp.AppWin.Main.InitializeComponent()
at MyCompany.MyApp.AppWin.Main..ctor(String[] args)
at MyCompany.MyApp.AppWin.Program.Main(String[] args)
The type initializer for 'System.Windows.Documents.TextElement' threw an exception.
at System.Windows.FrameworkElement..cctor()
The type initializer for 'System.Windows.Media.FontFamily' threw an exception.
at System.Windows.Media.FontFamily..ctor(String familyName)
at System.Windows.SystemFonts.get_MessageFontFamily()
at System.Windows.Documents.TextElement..cctor()
The type initializer for 'MS.Internal.FontCache.Util' threw an exception.
at MS.Internal.FontCache.Util.get_WindowsFontsUriObject()
at System.Windows.Media.FontFamily.PreCreateDefaultFamilyCollection()
at System.Windows.Media.FontFamily..cctor()
Invalid URI: The format of the URI could not be determined.
at System.Uri.CreateThis(String uri, Boolean dontEscape, UriKind uriKind)
at System.Uri..ctor(String uriString, UriKind uriKind)
at MS.Internal.FontCache.Util..cctor()
If we launch the application via the URL (in IE) or via the icon on the desktop first, we do not get the exception and application launches as expected.
The neat thing is that whatever we launch with first determines whether the app will launch at all. So, if we launch with legacy first, it breaks right away and we can't get the app to run even if we launch with the otherwise successful URL or icon. To get it to work, we have to logout and log back in and start it from the URL or icon.
If we first use the URL or the icon, we have no problem launching from the legacy application from that point forward (until we logout and come back in).
One other piece of information is that we are able to simulate the problem in the following fashion. If we enter a command prompt using "cmd.exe" and execute a statement to launch from a URL, we are successful. If, however, we enter a command prompt using "command.com" and we execute that same statement, we experience the breaking behavior.
We assume it is because the legacy application in Clipper uses the equivalent of command.com to create the shell to spawn the other app. We have tried a bunch of hacks like having command.com run cmd.exe or psexec and then executing, but nothing seems to work.
We have some ideas for workarounds (like making the app launch on startup so we force the successful launch from a URL, making all subsequent launches successful), but they all are sub-optimal even though we have a great deal of control over our workstations.
To reduce the chance that this is related to permissions, we have given the launching account administrative rights (as well as non-administrative rights in case that made a difference).
Any ideas would be greatly-appreciate. Like I said, we have some work arounds, but I would love to avoid them.
Thanks!
It sounds like the Presentation Font Cache service has trouble starting when the app is launched in this way.
If you have control over the client environment, you could try setting the Windows Presentation Font Cache startup to automatic instead of manual.
This is a shot in the dark made with incomplete information:
command.com and cmd.exe are quite different. AFAIK, command.com exists for legacy compatibility, so applications you run from it will run differently. I can't test anything to complete my post because I believe that command.com runs in 16-bit mode and 64bit versions of Windows (on which I'm running) don't support that mode anymore so no more command.com for me.
That being said, there should be no difference when trying to run 32-bit applications (including managed applications).
I'm not aware of what are the limitations of your environment, but some things you may try are:
Rename you .bat into .cmd to make sure it starts with cmd.exe rather than command.com
Make your .bat start the program using the start console command
Have a non-WPF program to invoke your WPF one with a more sane environment
The problem is that the windir environmental variable is not set when using command.com.
So, in your case, adding the line set windir=C:\Windows to the beginning of the bat file will solve the problem (assuming that you have your Windows instalation in C:\Windows.
An additional issue might be that the host application is running command.com in compatibility mode. The best is to list all the environmental variables after running cmd.exe (using the set command) and comparing it to the output of the set command that you set in your bat file
I'm not sure if this is technically a Kiosk, but it's basically the same idea. I have a program that runs full screen all the time from boot to shutdown to control a machine that the computer is hooked to.
Right now I just have a shortcut to the exe in the Startup folder so it starts when the system boots up and logs in. Is there any better way to do this? I'd really like the user to never see the Windows environment (just the windows loading progress bar on boot) if at all possible, but I'm guessing that's not possible.
Just thought I'd ask and see if there is a better way to do this than putting it in the startup folder?
The best option is to use Windows Embedded. This gives you much more control over the shell, and what is run and installed with the system.
If you have to do this with a consumer OS, you can try to bypass the login prompts to auto-login your user, and have your program setup in the registry to startup. Disable any other services you don't need. That will minimize the time the shell is displayed (but it's very difficult to remove it).
I've become familiar with the new concept of "out of browser" web applications, supported in the recent Silverlight, JavaFX, Adobe AIR etc.
Listening recently to a podcast on the subject by Scott Hanselman, I've become aware that one of the purposes behind these new architectures is to allow for "desktop-application-feel". Also, I understand some (or all) of these allow for some offline access to a sandbox of resources. This really sounds as if these frameworks could be an alternative to "real" desktop applications, as long as the application does not require messing with the user's machine (i.e. access to peripherals, certain file IO, etc).
I have a very specific question. My application needs to run at start-up. Is it possible to do so using such a framework without requiring the user to download and run a certain executable?
For example, I could always direct the user to download a small EXE that will put a .lnk file in the start-up directory, but I want to avoid such a patch.
To summarize: is it possible to have an out-of-browser web application setup itself to run at start-up without requiring file download?
To further clarify, this question does not come from an "evil" place, but rather from trying to decide whether "out-of-browser" frameworks are indeed a proper alternative to a desktop application, for my specific requirements.
The BkMark example here shows how to start an application on startup using Adobe Air. So, yes it is possible.
So, here's the deal: web apps in general will have a security context around them, and by default won't have access to write to the filesystem (outside of a temp files), access the registry, etc.
One way is, as you said, have the user run something or configure it so the lnk is executed on startup.
Another way, and I think, more in line of what you want, is that the user can run the program himself, click some button in the application, and it's configured.
I know with Java you could do this, but the user has to allow full access to their system, because your app would need to change System configuration. Then you could just configure it (by writing a lnk to your WebStart JNLP in the Startup folder)
For Internet Exploder, Javascript apps do have write access to the disk.
For other (better-secured) browsers you will either need to have a download, or Adobe AIR.
Assuming you are building for Windows, launching an executable at startup can be done several ways.
For user session startup, you can achieve this either by putting a lnk file in the appropriate folder, or with a registry entry. For operating system startup, you can achieve this with a registry entry. There are several permutations:
run application once on boot (UI not allowed)
run application every boot (UI not allowed)
start service every boot according to policy set in registry
run application once on user session start
run application every user session
Since an out of browser application has UI I expect you mean run application every user session and in this case you may as well put an LNK file in the user's startup folder.
I just created a shortcut for an SL4 OOB application, and this was the Target of the shortcut:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Silverlight\sllauncher.exe" 2635882436.localhost
A search of my disk revealed that location 2635882436.localhost is a folder.
C:\Users\<mylogin>\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\Silverlight\OutOfBrowser\2635882436.localhost
I rather doubt an OOB app of any type could place a shortcut in the Startup folder unless you somehow obtained Full Trust.