I am working on a project that uses Electron.NET and Blazor. I am looking for a solution how to start it automatically on OS(Win || MAC || Linux) start.
ElectronNET.API -> Version="9.31.2"
.NET Version = netcoreapp3.1
There is a folder in Windows 10/11 located at %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. If you put a shortcut to your app in there it will run at startup for the current user.
If you want to run at startup for all users you will need:
admin escalation
create a task in Windows Task Scheduler with the trigger When the computer starts
I don't know how to do any of that on a Mac/Linux, but likely the basic process will be the same:
find an o/s specific way of starting a program
get your app to detect the platform it's running on
invoke said process putting shortcuts, links or config entries in the right places
I don't think Electron/ElectronNET has any specific helpers for this sort of thing.
There is an npm library called auto-launch that you would use if you were building Electron rather than ElectronNET. See NPM - auto-launch and also this article on how to use it in Electron. You might be able to port something into your app from there.
Related
I work at a company in which we need to restrict administrative access but allow the install of select programs with an easy way to update the list of programs. We want to develop a sort of appstore for everyone's PC where they can access the list of allowed apps and install what they need. We want to write this in C#.
To do this i have initially developed a windows service that starts as a localhost and runs at boot time giving it admin powers. I than use an application which talks to the windows service via a service hosted by the windows service. Long story short its told what app the user wants from the list and the list provides the file path for the application stored on a private repository.
This is a sort of very very early attempt at this and security is in mind and will be added once the concept functions.
Now onto the problem were having.... when we launch the installer using our service the installer window never launches in the desktop for the user to configure the options that could be in an installer. This of course poses a problem for a lot of our installers. After some quick research i understand why this happens due to what level the services run in the operating system and their inability to access the desktop.
My question is..... is there a way to solve this problem? a way to have a service launch at bootime and launch installers as an administrator on the users desktop? or is this too messy and creates too many issues? is there a way to do this with a console app or WPF?
Thanks in advance!
Indeed like what you found about windows services, I don't think this whole flow can work as a service. There seems to have some workarounds though, according to this thread: How can I run an EXE program from a Windows Service using C#?
If it's an app-store where users can choose what to install, maybe an application is all that's needed. Like you said:
I than use an application which talks to the windows service via a service hosted by the windows service. Long story short its told what app the user wants from the list and the list provides the file path for the application stored on a private repository.
Seems like an application can handle all the works here already.
I'm working on creating custom Cortana commands. The commands are registered and executed using a Universal Windows Platform Application. (GitHub)
For instance, I've registered the following command
<Command Name="ShutDown">
<ListenFor>Shut down</ListenFor>
<Navigate/>
</Command>
To run this function in a UWP application
static async void ShutDown()
{
var dialog = new MessageDialog("This is where I would shut the computer down.");
await dialog.ShowAsync();
//System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("Shutdown", "-s -t 10");
}
But after setting this up I learned System.Diagnostics.Process isn't supported in UWP.
The custom commands I want to run involve some sort of execution such as launching external programs, running other scripts, or opening websites.
It makes sense that UWP doesn't support them given that it's universal and an XBox or a phone might not be able to do these, but I was hoping there was some alternative or hacky way to accomplish this on a Windows 10 PC.
Is there a way for me to execute Process commands or something else with similar functionality in a UWP application? It seems like even though I can get Cortana to execute my C# code, UWP doesn't support much that would be useful in this situation.
Thanks in advance.
There are - limited - ways to achieve similar behavior.
You could use LaunchUri to trigger other apps which registered for a certain URI-Scheme. This should work for your webbrowser scenario. More details here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.system.launcher.launchuriasync.aspx
You could trigger another app and get results back from it using LaunchForResults. The called app has to support this. More details here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/mt269386.aspx
You could trigger App Services provided by another app. The called app has to support this. The app service will be executed in background. ( I think this is pretty cool.) More details here:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2015/06/11/writing-windows-10-app-services-in-javascript.aspx
This is a little hacky: I'm not sure if this still works but it did work for Windows 8.1: You could create a so called "Brokered Component". This allows you to trigger everything from you app on you machine, but you won't be able to publish a brokered component into the store. This also allowed Process.Start() on Windows 8.1. It only worked for sideloaded apps. I'm not sure if it still works on Windows 10.
More info here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn630195.aspx
Summary:
Starting another app is pretty easy as long as the target app registered as app service or registered a protocol handler (Uri scheme).
Starting scripts or other *.exe is impossible if option 4 doesn't work any longer.
With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607) there is an option to enable this scenario on PC. With this API in the Desktop Extension SDK you can launch a fulltrust process that runs at the full user privileges:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/Windows.ApplicationModel.FullTrustProcessLauncher
This way you can light it up on the platforms where it is supported, i.e. PCs running 1607 or above. And your app will still be universal:
if (ApiInformation.IsApiContractPresent("Windows.ApplicationModel.FullTrustAppContract", 1, 0))
{
await FullTrustProcessLauncher.LaunchFullTrustProcessForCurrentAppAsync();
}
I'm working on creating custom Cortana commands. The commands are registered and executed using a Universal Windows Platform Application. (GitHub)
For instance, I've registered the following command
<Command Name="ShutDown">
<ListenFor>Shut down</ListenFor>
<Navigate/>
</Command>
To run this function in a UWP application
static async void ShutDown()
{
var dialog = new MessageDialog("This is where I would shut the computer down.");
await dialog.ShowAsync();
//System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("Shutdown", "-s -t 10");
}
But after setting this up I learned System.Diagnostics.Process isn't supported in UWP.
The custom commands I want to run involve some sort of execution such as launching external programs, running other scripts, or opening websites.
It makes sense that UWP doesn't support them given that it's universal and an XBox or a phone might not be able to do these, but I was hoping there was some alternative or hacky way to accomplish this on a Windows 10 PC.
Is there a way for me to execute Process commands or something else with similar functionality in a UWP application? It seems like even though I can get Cortana to execute my C# code, UWP doesn't support much that would be useful in this situation.
Thanks in advance.
There are - limited - ways to achieve similar behavior.
You could use LaunchUri to trigger other apps which registered for a certain URI-Scheme. This should work for your webbrowser scenario. More details here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.system.launcher.launchuriasync.aspx
You could trigger another app and get results back from it using LaunchForResults. The called app has to support this. More details here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/mt269386.aspx
You could trigger App Services provided by another app. The called app has to support this. The app service will be executed in background. ( I think this is pretty cool.) More details here:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mvpawardprogram/archive/2015/06/11/writing-windows-10-app-services-in-javascript.aspx
This is a little hacky: I'm not sure if this still works but it did work for Windows 8.1: You could create a so called "Brokered Component". This allows you to trigger everything from you app on you machine, but you won't be able to publish a brokered component into the store. This also allowed Process.Start() on Windows 8.1. It only worked for sideloaded apps. I'm not sure if it still works on Windows 10.
More info here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn630195.aspx
Summary:
Starting another app is pretty easy as long as the target app registered as app service or registered a protocol handler (Uri scheme).
Starting scripts or other *.exe is impossible if option 4 doesn't work any longer.
With the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607) there is an option to enable this scenario on PC. With this API in the Desktop Extension SDK you can launch a fulltrust process that runs at the full user privileges:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/Windows.ApplicationModel.FullTrustProcessLauncher
This way you can light it up on the platforms where it is supported, i.e. PCs running 1607 or above. And your app will still be universal:
if (ApiInformation.IsApiContractPresent("Windows.ApplicationModel.FullTrustAppContract", 1, 0))
{
await FullTrustProcessLauncher.LaunchFullTrustProcessForCurrentAppAsync();
}
I have desktop application that can be installed on the users computer with "setup" msi file like any other application.
I'm developing web application and I need somehow to integrate the desktop application with the web application. Web application is developed using PHP (desktop application is developed using C#), and when clicking on one button on the web application, the desktop application needs to be launched.
Is there a way of doing this? I was thinking about a few scenarios:
-Maybe if possible to install the app directly on the server and to launch it from there?
-Maybe to be required the user to have the app installed on his computer and to call the app from there?
If possible I would prefer to not use the second approach because it's better if the third party to not be involved - it will be more user friendly if the application is launched directly. But any help will be appreciated because at this point I'm not sure if that is possible to be done at all.
You can install app at server an run it with exec() or "`" operator - but to control gui of app you need to use some like autoit ant etc.
If you ultimately decide to require your users to have the client application installed and expect majority of the users to be on Windows, you could register your application to handle specific scheme and parse its command line when started. More on this here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa767914(v=vs.85).aspx
You'd register a custom scheme and then intercept in in the application's command line arguments. The whole URL will be passed as an argument, e.g.:
myapp://parameter1,parameter2
The browser will mostly ask whether or not the user trusts the application to handle this scheme with an option to remember this setting.
If you don't have access to the source code of the client application, you can develop a middleware, some sort of a launcher that handles the URL and then runs the client application after maybe modifying some configuration files based on the URL or otherwise controlling the third-party application to do as you with.
As for solution #1, I don't think C# matters if your application can run on Mono, so you should be able to just run it from PHP. However, this probably won't work on web hosting and you will have to get a VPS for that.
There are very good (security) reasons why it is hard to launch client-side processes from web browsers.
Do you have access to the source code of the C# app? If so, you could consider modifying it to take advantage of Microsoft ClickOnce deployment.
Some references:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t71a733d.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t71a733d(v=vs.80).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6ae39a7c.aspx
http://www.codemag.com/Article/0902031
Here's an old article on deploying WinForms applications via ClickOnce with Visual Studio 2005: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms953320.aspx
It can possibly be done with IIS but it can be cumbersome setting it up to run as the current user, especially since it would probably also need to run elevated for an app that needs to attach to the current user's desktop.
Easiest is to install a Windows LAMP distro (like WAMP: http://www.wampserver.com/en/) and then run the httpd.exe directly from an elevated (Admin) command prompt; do not run apache as a service!
Once you do this performing and exec("command"); call in php will bring up a desktop app as if it was invoked from an admin command prompt. Obviously you need to set up the apache server to be accessible from outside the local system, etc.
Basically i need the way to just have a popup schedule to open every morning when the user log in his computer. an application to install in his computer. I am not quite sure what to use? Any direction
The 2 ways I have done something similar to this using Visual Studio and .net language are:
1) creating a Windows Service
2) creating a Console Application that runs from the task scheduler as described by user 281693
IMO Console app + task scheduler is easiest. Windows Service requires a bit more setting up.
It can be done using Windows Task Scheduler. Go to Windows Scheduler. Add a task and select to run it when user logs on.