In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

What I have done which is working (and neater) is to change the task to run "HG612_stats.exe", and told it to start in the appropriate "HG612_Modem_Stats\Scripts" directory.
I imagine this is avoiding the OpenWith.exe, and certainly avoiding cscript of the .vbs file.

If easy I suggest you change the Settings Editor to generate this variant

I used a .VBS script mainly for XP users, where I couldn't find any other way to make the .exe program run 100% silently 100% of the time (other than by running a shortcut to a batch file that ran the .exe - phew).

Running the .exe silently can be done in Vista & Windows 7, but I chose to continue with the .VBS script for compatibility reasons.

RONSKI wrote the Settings Editor & included the starting/stopping/disabling of scheduled tasks to replace the previous batch files that used to do that.

He already differentiates between Windows versions (XP uses a different method to automate setting up scheduled tasks), so it MAY be relatively easy for him to change things to suit.

I haven't actually seen his code for the Settings Editor, so I don't really know how easy it would be.

If it's feasible, it could be included in the first release update, as will be the option to disable all the extensive event/error logs data.

We didn't/don't have access to a Windows 8 machine, so our testing didn't extend to W8.

Nonetheless, I'm glad you have sussed out how to make it work.
I believe there is a way to force cscript to run .VBS scripts, but I didn't include that as it didn't seem necessary at the time.

I can very easily change this, if the VBS script is only required for XP, then I can change all later OS's to directly run the exe file from the scheduled task.

Edited by R0NSKI (Mon 11-Mar-13 16:35:20)

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

What I have done which is working (and neater) is to change the task to run "HG612_stats.exe", and told it to start in the appropriate "HG612_Modem_Stats\Scripts" directory.
I imagine this is avoiding the OpenWith.exe, and certainly avoiding cscript of the .vbs file.

If easy I suggest you change the Settings Editor to generate this variant

Are you logged into Windows 8 using a Username & Password or just a username?

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

I can very easily change this, if the VBS script is only required for XP, then I can change all later OS's to directly run the exe file from the scheduled task.

Testing this with Windows 7, these are the results:-

Logged in to Windows using Username & Password & the task set to "Run whether user is logged on or not", the exe runs silently.

Logged in to Windows using Username only & the task set to "Run only when user is logged on", the exe runs, but its command window is visible, so in this circumstance running the .VBS script makes it run invisibly.


I imagine it will be the same setup for Vista.

So in summary, depending on Stephen Todd's response about how he logs into Windows 8, it MAY be that it is best to use the .VBS script for everything apart from Windows 8?

I just found that out to, and remember now that programs only run silently when the user supplies a password on Vista onwards.

I've also noticed that the HG612_Stats.exe still takes into account any delay set on the delays tab, do we need to pass an argument to HG612_Stats.exe to tell it to ignore the delay when run from the VBS script?

I login to Windows 8 with username/password.
I have the task manager action logged in with username and password.
If I make a task version with just username, I see the command window.

There is an option 'Configure for' with choices including Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.They don't seem to change things. The default seems to be 'Configure for Vista/Windows Server 2008'.

I think it is the same as for Vista and Win7.

~~~~

An experiment you might try to check OS differences:

As I mentioned, an odd thing is that even running my own command line (nothing to do with task manager), the line
C:\Windows\system32\OpenWith.exe ""D:\Temp\HG612_Modem_Stats\Scripts\HG612_stats.VBS""
interacts, saying 'How do you want to open this type of file (.exe)?', with a prompt to 'keep using Cscript?'.
Even though .vbs is registered to open with Cscript.

When I try command line
C:\Windows\system32\OpenWith.exe cscript.exe ""D:\Temp\HG612_Modem_Stats\Scripts\HG612_stats.VBS""
it comes up with the even more improbable 'How do you want to open this type of file (.exe)?' with a prompt 'Look for an App in the App store'

The prompts are Metro style. It may be Metro intercepting old style OpenWith behaviour?
(I use Windows 8 as a pure desktop system, avoiding Metro almost completely, but it still creeps in sometimes.)

I thought that to make a task silent, you have to run it under the username of SYSTEM.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

I just found that out to, and remember now that programs only run silently when the user supplies a password on Vista onwards.

I've also noticed that the HG612_Stats.exe still takes into account any delay set on the delays tab, do we need to pass an argument to HG612_Stats.exe to tell it to ignore the delay when run from the VBS script?

The delay can be set to zero (ideal if only running one instance - i.e. a default installation).

However, for testing purposes (or possibly even used for backup purposes), I usually also have another instance running via a separate ini file, delayed by 30 seconds.

So, for the time being at least, I don't plan to disable or ignore any delay settings as I (& maybe others) have a use for them.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

I thought that to make a task silent, you have to run it under the username of SYSTEM.

That seems to work for XP systems (password not needed), but I haven't had much success when previously trying it on Vista/W7 systems.

Maybe the command line could simply consist of something on the lines of:-

cscript ""D:\Temp\HG612_Modem_Stats\Scripts\HG612_stats.VBS""


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/bb490816....