Application run as service is not appearing - visual-c++

I have two PCs and I'm logged in both with same user id(have the administration rights). I have installed the service on both PCs. I'm getting a strange issue:
1. If I remove both PCs from network then starting the service makes application appear on both the PCs.
2. If both PCs are in network then One PC shows application while on other it does not appear. however, if I check the task manager, application is running fine.
I find out following things:
1. On PC where application appears, active desktop is "Default"
2. On PC where application does not appear, active desktop is "Screen-Saver". I checked that non of the screen-saver are active and running on this pc.
3. Now If I remove the PCs from network and re-connect then behaviour just got switched. I.e. where it was not working start appearing application but not on other PC.
Why one PC is in screen-saver mode while other in Default? Is this has to do with common login id? How can I work around this issue?

These two services are independent of each other. These service createprocess() which invokes a VB application.
Another question I have is that if I'm not in N/w and run the service then it VB GUI appears properly. If I use remote desktop to start the service, the service appears properly but the VB GUI does not appear :-(
The active desktop at this moment is 'winlogon'. I'm not able to make the VB GUI visible if I give lpdesktop = "WinSta0\Desktop" or "WinSta0\winlogon" or "WinSta0\screen-saver". Please note that I'm accessing the system where service is physically running through remote desktop.
Can someone let me know what I needs to do to make VB GUI appear remotely if I start the service remotely?

Related

Blueprism Application Modeller showing Launch instead of Identify when spying

I am using BluePrism v6.1.0 and I am trying to identify elements from a launched application in Application Modeller. (I used the Windows application type in the modeler configuration)
From some tutorials I saw, the launch button changes to Identify button after the app is launched, however, mine is still showing "Launch". Please see screenshot below
screenshot
You need to launch the application from the application modeller, not on your own.
Since you are using Windows 10, the built in applications are use differently than normal in windows 7. Here is how you can add the code to make it work with your system Screenshot. Also for future applications use this code in Windows Power Shell to get information about the application you wanted to work with in Window 10 : "Get-AppxPackage"
Not fully explained here but this can also mean not only is the app not launched but blueprism can't "see" the app is launched. Two ways to solve this so close the application and relaunch it then it will change to identify, OR you can attach the current instance of the object to the running application.
Either way the outcome is you're making blueprism see the active application so it will change the launch to an identify option.
Edit: watch out as well, if you connect your application to blue prism and then detach it blue prism will no longer see the running application hence will revert the identify option into a launch option.

FileSystemWatcher no longer has old filename in some Windows 7 machines

This one is too bizarre for me. In my Framework 4.0 WinForms app, FileSystemWatcher recently started giving me a null for OldName and only the parent folder for OldFullPath, not the full path of the old filename. However, some of the Windows 7 computers do this while others do not. I tried uninstalling our company anti-virus program temporarily but that didn't make any difference. I rolled back my code but it didn't make any difference.
I tried switching my application from Framework 4.0 to 4.5.2 but the problem persisted. In fact, I believe the problem is at a lower level than .NET because I wrote a test C++ program that uses ReadDirectoryChangesW() and a similar problem occurs: the problem computer never receives the FILE_ACTION_RENAMED_OLD_NAME notification, only the FILE_ACTION_RENAMED_NEW_NAME one.
I compared running processes and ended ones that are running on the problem computer but not on the non-problem one. Both computers are up to date with Windows Updates; I am hoping not to have to start uninstalling them.
I have one Windows 8 computer and the problem is not there; however, upgrading from 7 to 8 is not an option for several other deployments.
It just occurred to me to look at kernel32.dll on the respective machines, since that is where ReadDirectoryChangesW() lives. It's different.
Worky: v6.1.7601.18798
No worky: v6.1.7601.18869
Was there a recent change to the API that I need to accommodate?
Update: I found a non-working machine with v6.1.7601.18409 so that's not the problem.
In a word, Kaspersky.
To elaborate, I thought I had already tested removing KAS but maybe I didn't reboot after or something, and it's odd because it is also installed on a computer at work that does not present the problem--same version of KAS.
Note that this version is a corporate version, which installs:
Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 for Windows
and
Kaspersky Security Center Network Agent
A central policy is pushed out to each client computer and enforced. It has control over settings, like trusted applications (a whitelist). When IT pushed out a whitelist entry for my specific application, it fixed the problem.
Note that there are several checkboxes to select for each trusted application entry. This fix only needed one of them.
Under Settings | Anti-Virus protected | Exclusions and trusted applications | Settings, there is a list that can be added to.
Do not scan opened files
X Do not monitor application activity
Do not inherit restrictions of the parent process (application)
Do not monitor child application activity
Allow interaction with application interface
Do not scan network traffic
Honourable mention must go to my co-worker, Arti Chauhan, who suggested more than once that KAS might be the problem. I thought I had fully tested when I guess I hadn't.

Connect to multiple remote machines to run automation scripts

I am an automation engineer where I need to run 450 CodedUI scripts on multiple machines. I have 15 machines on which I run these scripts.
To resolve my trouble I am using Microsoft's tool Remote Desktop Connection Manager to login to these machines. But I am getting the error on failed scripts that "Either the window is locked or minimized", but when I used to directly login to these machines and run the scripts there were no such issues.
I am unable to find any resolution. I tried one more tool to connect to 15 machines , i.e. AppVision tool as well. Even with that tool I am facing the errors on all my scripts that Some control is blocking the control to be clicked in.
I need to know if I can have any other tool or way where I would be able to login to the machines in one go and run automation scripts without any errors.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks in adavance.
Coded UI requires that the screen saver is disabled on the remote machines.
Coded UI interacts with the desktop of the machine running the tests. When the screen saver is active it controls the desktop and, effectively, prevents Coded UI from interacting with the application under test.
The question refers to "Microsoft's tool Remote Desktop Connection Manager" so perhaps you are not using test agent software to run the test. Check this Microsoft web page and this Microsoft forum question for more details on how to set up remote computers to run Coded UI.

Wmi Security on Windows 8

I have some problems regarding WMI scripting on Windows 8. More precisely, remote connection from Win7(not that relevant) to Windows 8. Note that the following issues do not happen when the client machine runs Windows 7.
First one is getting data regarding the current shares on that machine. Specifically, I am trying to get the Path property of the shares, that is local path.
In windows 7 it works perfectly, in windows 8 however it returns null(ran with wbemtest from remote computer).
First I thought that there is a problem with the WMI system. Then I ran the same query directly on the win8 machine. That returned the actual local path of the share. This led me to believe that there are problems with the WMI security on that machine.
Another issue I have with WMI on win8 is that it does not allow me to run things as Administrator, even though the user used to log is is the Administrator.
Regarding the security settings on the win8 machine, I gradually lowered them to try the exact position in which I can operate. I have reached the level where Everyone has every access, so it is the lowest security possible. Hope someone can help.
After a few days of just playing with security around Wmimgmt.msc and dcomcnfg I finally found a way to run wmi as administrator on a remote machine. Although this is not exactly what I did, I found that this works great: I activated the Administrator account: net user administrator /active:yes. Then I entered User accounts and set a password for the Administrator account. I then opened Wmimgmt.msc and set allow on all security for the Root node and cimv2 node. After this Wmi remotely(logged on as administrator) works as a charm

How do I debug a Worker Role using Remote Desktop with Windows Azure?

I now have my Windows Azure environment set up so that I can access my Worker Role with Remote Desktop. However, I'm not sure how to proceed at the moment. After much digging I found a web site that was offline but in Google's cache there was mention of attaching to the Worker Role running in the Azure Cloud from the Visual Studio debugger. But I only have Visual Developer (not studio) 2010 and I have searched all over and as far as I can see there is no such option to attach to a remote server. I am able to publish my project to the Azure Cloud without error and I have a "healthy" instance of my Worker Role showing as active and running.
I did connect with RDP through the Azure Management portal. The login worked fine and up came the remote desktop window. I searched through much of what I could find and was unable to find my Worker Role. I must have the wrong impression of RDP, because I had hoped to see the Worker Role's main display form when I logged in, just like I do when I debug it locally in the Cloud Emulator. But instead all I saw was a blank desktop with some base level server inspection and management routines. I even checked the Event Viewer for Application related messages and saw none.
So now I'm stuck wondering if my Worker Role is actually running or not, despite the seemingly positive status messages from the Management Portal, and I still want to attach to my Worker Role for debugging through Visual Developer, if it's possible, but I am unable to figure out how.
Anyone with experience in this area that can give me some solid tips on what to do next, please respond.
UPDATE: I believe my worker role may be running because I opened a command window and did a Netstat and saw it listening on the correct port. However, that may just be my Worker Role shell class that starts the custom EXE I have it launch as a spawned proces. I still haven't confirmed if my custom EXE is running yet.
UPDATE-2: Just ran TaskList from a command window and the custom EXE is listed.
UPDATE-3: Everything is working as I just ran a remote test of the service so that's not a problem. Still want to know how to attach to the Worker Role from Visual Developer 2010 for remote debugging, and if it's possible to see the custom EXE's display form like I do when doing local debugging in the Cloud Emulator.
-- roschler
There is a set of articles here which goes in length on how to set up for remote debugging in Azure:
http://blogs.u2u.be/peter/post/2011/06/21/Remote-debugging-an-Azure-Worker-role-using-Azure-Connect-Remote-desktop-and-the-remote-debugger.aspx
http://blogs.u2u.be/peter/post/2011/06/24/Remote-debugging-an-Azure-worker-role-using-Azure-Connect-remote-desktop-and-remote-debugger-part-2.aspx
http://blogs.u2u.be/peter/post/2011/06/26/Remote-debugging-a-Windows-Azure-Worker-Role-using-Azure-Connect-Remote-desktop-and-the-remote-debugger-part-3.aspx
The key takeaway is that you don't need to actually install Visual Studio on Azure, you only need to copy the Remote Debugger bits and then use Azure Connect to add your developer machine to the Virtual Network.
You can setup Remote Debugging with Visual Studio 2012
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Remote-Debugging-Windows-dedaaec9
When you say:
But instead all I saw was a blank desktop with some base level server inspection and management routines.
this is exactly what you get with an Azure VM. It's a basic OS install, plus the bare minimum of Azure stuff it needs to run and the code you've uploaded. There's no fancy monitoring or health checks available on the machine by default, you're expected to have provided those yourself to have them available without having to RDP into the machine to check on it.
RDP is very good for tracking down certain problems, like checking that a startup task will run, checking which directories items are installed in and just generally being nosey. If you need extra tools to track down a problem, you can just install them while you're connected to the server. For example I have RDPed into a server and installed the Microsoft Debugging Tools, to track down a memory issue.
I suppose you could remote into your VM, install Visual Studio there, and debug the process...
I also suppose it might be possible to enable remote debugging (not sure what's involved there, but such a thing exists, and it works over TCP) and debug from a local instance of Visual Studio.
To my knowledge, neither is commonly done.
Based on other answers, you would be better off writing a log file to a local storage. You can read the file from RDP if you reallyhace to. Keep in mind, debugging on Azure isn't really simple, and rightly so.
What I was thinking though was, maybe you could run the process using the user's credentials. I can't verify at the moment, but you have a better shot of seeing the ui when you rdp.

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