I tried to make a Windows Media Player remoting application in C++ with the help of this guide: Remoting the Windows Media Player Control. However, even if I return "Remote" in the GetServiceType method, the Windows Media Player instance appears to be running like a "Local" one, as if it is a separate instance, so it doesn't share playback engine with the main WMP but rather its like running on its own.
I have already saw some complete source code related to this (i.e. https://github.com/.../PlayerWMP.cpp) but somehow, my "Remote" WMP always seem to run like a "Local" one.
I have confirmed that my IServiceProvider::QueryService and IWMPRemoteMediaServices::GetServiceType implementations are getting called so remoting should be properly set up already, and again, issue is not that I cannot host the ActiveX object, issue is that is not able to remote the main WMP instance
finally figured something out after days, well at least for Windows 7, WMP remoting doesn't work if the remoting app is running as admin, regardless if WMP is running as admin or not, it just doesn't seem to work. The sample apps I have also worked same way but I was not able to see their common denominator until now. I also don't see any posts over the internet regarding this. I know this is not complete/real answer but I hope this may be able to help some other people as well
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I have a problem with a web service that is installed and started with a .msi that is created with the WiX toolset.
The service can be installed and started on all the machines I tested so far (shown as running in the Services Manager) but on some machines it is not reachable (for example via a browser) and not shown in the list of listening ports on that machine (displayed with 'netstat -a').
I am trying to figure out what's going wrong but I am not really familiar with web service development and configuration. It's a third party service, thus I don't know how it works internally.
A good starting point for me would be to find out, what exactly happens when a service is installed and started during the execution of the .msi-file.
Maybe I could try to tackle the problem on a lower level then.
Below is my code in the ServiceInstall-Element:
<ServiceInstall
Id="ServiceID"
Type="ownProcess"
Vital="yes"
Name="ServiceName"
DisplayName="ServiceDisplayName"
Description="Lorem Ipsum"
Start="auto"
Account="LocalSystem"
ErrorControl="normal"
Interactive="no"
Arguments="action=run">
</ServiceInstall>
The argument is important - without it, the service won't start or run.
Maybe someone else encounterd the same or a similar problem and can help me out.
Thanks already in advance - each hint is appreciated.
EDIT I (15.04.18):
As it might be a problem with the specific service, I will add some further information here:
It's a third party software called CryptoLicensing:
http://www.ssware.com/cryptolicensing/cryptolicensing_net.htm
Part of this software is that specific program, that serves as a License Server and does the license registration, for example in a customer's network.
The service can be run as a Windows application or installed and run as a Windows service. In both cases it should be listening on a (pre-)specified port on the installed machine.
Whenever I start the .exe as an application, everything works as intended. The service is reachable (for example with the browser) and can be accessed from other machines in the network.
When the .exe is installed and started as a service, it does not work as intended on every machine. For example if I install and start the service on my laptop, it is shown as running in the Services Manager, but is not reachable on its assigned URL (not even on the localhost) nor is the specific port displayed in the active listening ports, for example with 'netstat -a'.
The service itself starts without any error messages and does not log any errors or exceptions as it seems to be running without any problems.
I contacted the vendor, but sometimes he doesn't reply quickly and he is not very specific in his replies.
Before asking the question I assumed that it was a problem with the Windows user rights and the WiX installer but during the discussion here I had the feeling that it might a problem with the service itself.
I hope this 'new' piece of information helps in isolating and location the problem.
Thanks to everyone who helped so far!
Hopefully not stating the obvious here, but WiX doesn't do much except populate the ServiceInstall table in the MSI file, so this is about why Windows Installer won't start the service. ServiceInstall table:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa371637(v=vs.85).aspx
Also, this isn't really about ServiceInstall - it's probably about the ServiceControl element in your WiX source, but it's not clear whether that's how you're starting it or if you're starting it manually later on. That does make a difference. What is the error message and where are you getting it, and is it a 1920 or 1921 error (in the context of ServiceControl).
The main reason a service will start on one system but not another is missing dependencies. If your service is C++ based (the post doesn't say) then there are probably dependencies on C runtimes, UCRT runtimes, MFC or ATL runtimes and so on.
First: are you sure this service is intended to run as LocalSystem? (MSDN, SO).
Second: did you check the event logs in detail for anything obvious? If the service is good you should find a hint at least. Something to start with. I find that I sometimes miss the actual logs in the event viewer because it is so "crowded". My take on it: empty the log and stop and restart the service.
Something locking / blocking: If the service installs and runs OK I would suspect other factors such as firewalls (hardware & software), security software in general (anti-virus, malware scanners), network configuration issues (proxies, WINS, DNS and all the complexities involved in networking). Is the service trying to reach an UNC path?
Diverse Machines: What are the target machines? Are they virtual, are they physical, are they test machines, are they operative SOE machines in corporate networks? Are they the same OS version and edition?
Further Ideas: It is not quite related, but maybe skim this list of suggestions for debugging from another answer (I am not sure why it was down-voted, I think it is an OK list to inspire debugging ideas): Windows Application Startup Error Exception code: 0xe0434352 (maybe just skim the bolded words for ideas - Recommended).
sc.exe: And finally, perhaps check the sc.exe tool (Service Control) and see if it can provide you with some useful information for debugging.
sc.exe in the context of killing hung services (sample use).
sc.exe from MSDN
Some further links:
Windows Services Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Content seems to be up to date - at face value at least. These guys claim to be experts on services. I have no idea who they are.
Essential Tools for Windows Services: SC.EXE
Run Service Control (sc.exe) command on secure port
After almost 20 months we finally (and accidentally) found a solution to the problem! For the few machines, on which the service did not run properly, setting the NoInteractiveServices value in the registry to 0 did the trick. A value of 1 (which is default) means that no service is allowed to run interactively, regardless of whether it has the SERVICE_INTERACTIVE_PROCESS property. More information on Interactive Services.
I am not completely satisfied with the solution, because on all the other machines NoInteractiveServices is set to 1 AND the service runs properly anyway. However, on the machines where the service did not run interactively this solution worked for us. Thus I will accept this as an answer.
If anyone has more information on this issue and can explain why this works, feel free to
add them - I would be very interested!
I'm new to programming. There are quite a lot of Q/A on this, but I couldn't find a concrete answer. Hence the question. I'm writing a screen sharing application. Now I want to turn that application to windows service. which I already did with. Apparently, the application works like this. When the counter party sends the screenshots, the application receives it and parses the data to RGB and shows on a window renderer. Because now its a service, although it receives the data, i believe that it may not be able to open renderer in the current desktop due to session isolation, the way to get around this would be to use IPC between Desktop App an the service. However, it makes it complected. Is there any simple way to solve this problem?
I have 2 application running on the same machine.
Editor, is a Windows 8 application developed with WinRT and is sand-boxed. (Client)
Integrator is a C++ application for reading hardware devices over serial COM ports. (Server)
I have done a lot of searches about how to get client/server communication to work on Windows 8,
and can only find posts that say it is not possible using standard WinRT classes, etc.
What I need is a solution where by the Windows 8 application works as a client, and the standalone
executable works as a server.
Can someone please suggest a mechanism that can be used to do client/server communication.
If we cannot find a good solution for this, then we will have to resort to using files, which
I would rather not have to do.
Clarification: I am aware of the many mechanism that can be used to do client/server communication.
What I am looking for is a workaround to the problem, where the these techniques will not work on
a Windows 8 application, developed with WinRT. As the sand-boxing explicitly prohibits the client
and server being on the same host machine.
Well, the posts stating that such communication is not possible, are mostly right. There are 2 reasons, why this is prevented:
Being able to communicate to an application outside the sandbox effectively breaks the sandbox. The Windows Store app is now suddenly able to do everything the desktop application can do: access file system, registry... Windows Store apps live in a sandbox for reason - to be safe for the user.
The Windows Store app won't work after it is installed from the the store or from a package. It needs to have a desktop application installed and set up correctly as well.
I would suggest you try to move your server part to a different machine and make it a proper server. If for some reason you really can't do that, you still have the following options available:
You can use TCP/IP to connect local network resources if you remove the isolation for your Windows Store app. You will need to use CheckNetIsolation.exe, but since you already need to separately install the desktop application, this shouldn't be that much of a problem.
You can create files with a specific extension. Then register the desktop app for one extension and the Windows Store app for another extension. You can now shell execute files with these extensions to use them as a message for the other app.
We are developing win-mac file sync installer which is quite similar to Dropbox. The installer is built with c++ and QT. We had a use case, where if the internet is disconnected(plugged out network cable (or) not connected to any wifi) so basically no access to web, During this case we need to make the installer into offline.
I tried few approaches like polling continuously to our web servers. If we are not able to reach then we detect as internet dis-connectivity. Due to some reasons we wanted to have clean native implementation which will look for machines network connectivity.
I even tried http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965303%28VS.85%29.aspx for windows but this is failing in wifi cases even though we don't connect to wifi this example is saying "Network connected".
Can anyone suggest other alternatives. Platform specific solutions also invited.
You probably want to look at INetworkManager::GetConnectivity, and check for NLM_CONNECTIVITY_IPV4_INTERNET or NLM_CONNECTIVITY_IPV6_INTERNET in the response.
So, someone want me to hack some code for him. He has a 42" TFT display on which he will display some application/business related data.
However, 75% of the screen real estate is unused, so he wants to fill it with "TV/adverts/flash/you know, that kind of thing... web based....".
Any advice? Do I want an embedded web-server? If so, which? (he wants free & open source, or as cheap as possible) Do I display it in a browser? (duh! probably, dude) But I don't want/need a menu, address bar, toolbar, etc - it should be full screen (does that mean "kiosk mode"?).
Sorry, folks, the requirements are not clear, but I hope that you can guess what he probably means (he is not very techie). How should I proceed with this? Thanks.
I am working on such a display system, although ours already quite evolved, with support for multi-screen, multi-user and a lot more.
A few hints :
We use firefox with the "full fullscreen" extensiton (https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/1568) that allows to not display any menu bar, status bar etc. and to automatically start Firefox in that mode. Then you just need a startup script to launch firefox specifying the right URL when the machine is started.
Our system is web based, but as a multiscreen system it has one server and several client PCs connected to the server via HTTP, and each one to a TFT screen via VGA cables. If you have only one screen you could install the browser and the web server on the same machine. Only restriction : we use wake-on-lan from the server to the clients to automatically start the display every morning. This will not be possible with a single machine system !
To give you some ideas, the display mechanism basically works like that : first, the browser loads a html page with lots of javascript (that javascript constitutes what we will call the "client application".) This client application is written using the Prototype.js library (just an indication, there are many other possibilities). Then the client application asks the server for the content to be displayed. That content is passed as a JSON stream representing a playlist of objects (images, videos, text news, etc.). The client app displays each object in the playlist sequentially. The objects stay displayed for a specific duration (lots of setTimeout in the code). The transitions use effects from the Scriptaculous library (fade-in, fade-out...). When all objects have been shown, the client asks the server again for the playlist (in case changes have been made), and the process starts again. There is actually never a full reload of the page.
Then we also have a multi-content mode, where the screen is separated in various zones that are updated separately.
For one machine and a realtively static system (i.e. no GUI to add content), maybe you could implement that mechanism in a local site accessed via file://... The whole "intelligence" of the system would be in the javascript. That would save you the server part. I see one possible restriction : I think flash can't play video files from the client's machine (security restriction) so check this if you plan to use flash videos.
Well, I hope these few ideas can help you. Good luck !
Get one these
They offer a VESA mount for it I think if the screen your using supports that.
Full screen firefox would be one option.
A more flexible option would be a full screen QT app written in the language of your choice using the webkit widget for display, this would likely make flash content more difficult.
As for the content, i would put a LAMP setup on the fit pc. Build the web page using whatever feeds you want and just display the web page aka http://localhost
Alternatively you could host the "web parts" of the display on a standard web hosting server and display the data coming in on RS-422 in a separate QT widget.