We had a major storm through here recently and we suffered damage to the house roof and ceilings. I just received the quote to repair. I’m hoping that a small fraction of the 80,000 odd people that download SDIO and/or Desktop Info every month won’t mind chipping in a few dollars to help out. Click on the big blue button at the bottom of the page to help us keep a roof over our heads, literally!
Guests have read-only access to our forums. If you wish to participate you will need to register. Be sure to activate your account from the email sent to you when you register.
Hi, I'm trying to use Desktop Info on a Remote Desktop Server, sharing data between each uesr's instance, but can't get it to work. I assume this is because it only shares data within the same user-session's memory ? I was trying to get clever, run it as System always, and when a user logs in, it would run the user-instance which would then simply collect from the one running as system, but that's not how this works ? Is there a way to make this work ?
I think you're right that shared memory is within the same user session. The other option is to switch on the Desktop Info server on the primary instance and that will allow the secondary sessions to make a network connection to the primary instance. Look for Remote Monitoring on page 50.Hi, I'm trying to use Desktop Info on a Remote Desktop Server, sharing data between each uesr's instance, but can't get it to work. I assume this is because it only shares data within the same user-session's memory ? I was trying to get clever, run it as System always, and when a user logs in, it would run the user-instance which would then simply collect from the one running as system, but that's not how this works ? Is there a way to make this work ?
I tried this, but can't get it to work properly. If you run DesktopInfo with the server option. How do you then prevent it from displaying anything. I'm trying to run it under the system-account as a quasi service, so each user could then run their own instance with their own pick of the available items... But seems DesktopInfo needs to have an interactive desktop available or it won't run as a server ? I tried the logging option, whilce working fine as a user, same issue here, it won't log when running under system-account... Should it be able to run under system or am I trying to accomplish something this just wasn't desinged for (sadly :-))
I've managed to at least get a debuglog by using the /debug commandline option...
Attached it here. Looks like it can't finish startup-initialization "searching" for an interactive desktop or such ?
retry upload
I've never tried to run it as a service. Interesting idea...
By making every entry hidden.How do you then prevent it from displaying anything
How do you stop each user from adding other entries? Or maybe that doesn't matter, you're just trying to give access to certain metrics without revealing passwords??I'm trying to run it under the system-account as a quasi service, so each user could then run their own instance with their own pick of the available items..
I don't see anything unusual in the log, the TryUpdateUI occurs roughly once a second for about 50 seconds. 8 WMCommand entries all at once, not sure why they are there, seems to be in response to the shutdown request.
I'll do a little research to see what it would take to run it as a service. I know access to the file system changes.
Hi Glenn, it never completes initialization. If I do a debug running as a user, you see next steps in the log, eg. it binds networking and starts as a server. I never see that in this log, so it just hangs on that TryUpdateUI part...forever... I'll try to hide everything, perhaps it then doesn't need an interactive desktop to complete it initialization. Running as system I don't get "Normal" logging or running as server, it just never gets that far to initialize those seems... To give a hint: I'm trying to run it as system using a scheduled task (which starts it as system, non-interactive). If I instead start an interactive cmd.exe as system, then run desktopinfo under it, it will run correctly as system, it then also logs, and it then also starts the server-part (and because of interactive, ofcourse it also shows whatever you tell it to show on the Desktop). Definitely seems to be a dependency on running Interactive. Perhaps, if you specify server in options, you could strip/skip all of that in the code or have another option like non-interactive=true or the like. I mean, if you run it as a server, it most likely won't have to display anything, but rather only "serve" the specified goodies to eager clients, right...? 🙂
Oh, and to answer your question. I'm not trying to stop them from adding entries. If they do, it should be entries we admins would all want. I want to only enable this at user-logon startup for us admins. But since we're having a dozen admins or so, I don't want 10 admins logged in all running their own DesktopInfo, so that's where this idea from "sharing" came from. Have the main one running "invisible" as system, have the admins logon and run their own client which does nothing but get the stuff from the main one running as system... That way, I get optimum performance, least cpu-use and everybody gets this pretty fancy tool on each and every server we've got 🙂 Besides that, I plan running those admin-versions from a read-only share, so they won't be able to change any desktopinfo.ini's...
That's telling us it's failing trying to update the GUI, surprise surprise. Making it do what you need might entail a full blown service or maybe just skipping the TryUpdateUI call in response to an option.
I run it on the desktop for a bunch of machines with the server running so I can also monitor them remotely. So, no.I mean, if you run it as a server, it most likely won't have to display anything, but rather only "serve" the specified goodies to eager clients, right...?
Ok. Leave it with me.Oh, and to answer your question. I'm not trying to stop them from adding entries. If they do, it should be entries we admins would all want. I want to only enable this at user-logon startup for us admins. But since we're having a dozen admins or so, I don't want 10 admins logged in all running their own DesktopInfo, so that's where this idea from "sharing" came from. Have the main one running "invisible" as system, have the admins logon and run their own client which does nothing but get the stuff from the main one running as system... That way, I get optimum performance, least cpu-use and everybody gets this pretty fancy tool on each and every server we've got 🙂 Besides that, I plan running those admin-versions from a read-only share, so they won't be able to change any desktopinfo.ini's...
progressing...Oh, and to answer your question. I'm not trying to stop them from adding entries. If they do, it should be entries we admins would all want. I want to only enable this at user-logon startup for us admins. But since we're having a dozen admins or so, I don't want 10 admins logged in all running their own DesktopInfo, so that's where this idea from "sharing" came from. Have the main one running "invisible" as system, have the admins logon and run their own client which does nothing but get the stuff from the main one running as system... That way, I get optimum performance, least cpu-use and everybody gets this pretty fancy tool on each and every server we've got 🙂 Besides that, I plan running those admin-versions from a read-only share, so they won't be able to change any desktopinfo.ini's...
I think we got it working. For the record, the desktop version would never work as a service.
Alright ! That's great news... Sorry in the delay, I don't seem to be getting notifications from this site somehow...
How would I install/use it like this ?
I'll write it up in the manual, there's a few things that need to happen.
I'm currently testing it on win10 and win7 with remote monitoring. It's nice to know it will automatically come back after a reboot 🙂
One of the things I learned in the process is that shared memory is normally local to the user session. To share across sessions or from a service, one needs to create it in the global space.
