Running PingPlotter Pro as a service under Windows 2008 / Windows 7

Question

I'm trying to run PingPlotter Pro as a service under Windows 2008. It seems to start OK, but I can't see it running. How do I access it?

Solution

PingPlotter Pro uses the Interactive Service capabilities of Windows, which has significantly changed (and mostly disabled) starting with Windows Vista. This means that you will no longer be able to see PingPlotter Pro when you install it as a service under Windows 7/2008/Vista.

The workaround for this problem isn't perfect, but it does still allow you to work with PingPlotter Pro as a service.

(Note: There is a beta version of PingPlotter Pro that automates the following steps for you and creates a shortcut in your Start -> Programs -> PingPlotter menu that will give you quick access to the service instance of PingPlotter Pro).

Session 0

All services under Windows 7/2008/Vista that interact with the desktop now run under what is called 'Session 0' (you can Google for Vista Session 0 for more details on this). So when PingPlotter Pro starts, the user interface is visible on Session 0 only, and not in the tray on your main desktop.

Windows has some capabilities to help with services that weren't built to work with Session 0. There is a utility that is installed by default with Windows 7/2008/Vista that looks for any dialogs popping up in session 0 and lets you switch to session 0 to see those dialogs. This gives you access to the PingPlotter Pro user interface. The challenge with this is that PingPlotter doesn't normally have any dialogs - it's normally minimized to the tray.

Use a script to 'show' PingPlotter Pro

To solve this, we have created a small script that interacts with PingPlotter Pro when running as a service and causes it to show itself, which causes the Windows service helper to pop up a dialog asking if you want to see it. This is a very simple script which basically just hides, then shows PingPlotter Pro.

Download this script here: showpingplotter.zip

Unzip it and launch the only file inside. You may need to run this file twice after you first reboot, but then you'll get a dialog on the task bar which asks if you want to see PingPlotter Pro. Use that option and you'll get to a new 'desktop' with PingPlotter Pro shown.

Starting with Windows 7/2008 (but *not* Vista), the Session 0 user interface detection is disabled by default. To enable this, follow these steps:

• Open an elevated command prompt.
• Type sc config ui0detect start= auto, hit Enter.
• Type sc start ui0detect.

The script above should work now.

Attachments (1)

• showpingplotter.zip ( 143 Views, 300 Bytes )