Running EventGhost as a Windows service ?

[Snowbird]

Hello everyone,

first of all, I'd like to thank the creator of EventGhost !!!

Here's my question, currently it is possible to run EG automatically when a windows session is opened, that's fine, but in my situation it's not enough. In fact, my HTPC is not only used for watching movies, I also use it via Remote Desktop (RDP) to run some other tasks (not HTPC related). So when I use the PC via RDP and then disconnect from it, the session is locked (that's a normal windows behaviour), and if after that I want to watch a movie, I can't use my remote control even if EG is already running in the background since the session is locked. So my question are :
1/ is it possible to run EG as a Windows service ?
2/ or is there a way to send login/password information with the remote control to unlock the session to be able to use EG to watch movies ?

I'm using :
- Windows XP SP3
- EG final version
- XBMC final version
- Original XBOX Remote with its receiver

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

PS. If this subject was already addressed somewhere in this forum, I'm sorry I wasn't able to find the topic.

[stottle]

So the problem is that after running remote desktop, the htpc is locked? I've run into that too, I have the pc set to autologin at startup so people don't have to enter a password. So RDP does present a problem.

I'm not sure how running EG as a service would help? You still couldn't watch a movie, right? Can you explain the idea a little better?

I'm not going to say this is a good answer, but what I've done the few times I've used Remote Desktop is Restart when I'm done, so the autologin runs and the screen isn't locked.

Brett

[Bitmonster]

EG won't work right as a service. But you can reconnect the system to the local console, if you use the following command to end the RDP session:

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%windir%\System32\tscon.exe 0 /dest:console

[kricker]

EG won't work right as a service. But you can reconnect the system to the local console, if you use the following command to end the RDP session:

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%windir%\System32\tscon.exe 0 /dest:console

Smooth tip. I'm going to have to try that. It could save me some frustration at times.

[n3m3515]

Google for Concurrent Sessions remote desktop.
Every version of windows has a hack for setting up what you are talking about.
Ex. my Vista and Win7 PCs are both running Media Center.
By installing the tweaks (hacks) for enabling Concurrent Sessions on RDP
I don't disturb my wife (watching the HTPC) while I log into it remotely and start a download
that will take some time to complete.
She never knows I am there. She stays logged in and running smoothly.

N3M3515

[kricker]

Google for Concurrent Sessions remote desktop.
Every version of windows has a hack for setting up what you are talking about.
Ex. my Vista and Win7 PCs are both running Media Center.
By installing the tweaks (hacks) for enabling Concurrent Sessions on RDP
I don't disturb my wife (watching the HTPC) while I log into it remotely and start a download
that will take some time to complete.
She never knows I am there. She stays logged in and running smoothly.

N3M3515

I've done that, but for some reason, on occasion when I log out of the concurrent session it still kicked back to the login screen. Then, if I didn't log out of the concurrent session and the wife or someone wanted to reboot, they get the dialog mentioning someone else is logged in. This confuses them and then I have to deal with it. Or the PC doesn't reboot and waits for that dialog to get dealt with. For the most part I just switched to VNC.

[Snowbird]

Hello,

thank you all for your help, this command is doing exactly what I need

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%windir%\System32\tscon.exe 0 /dest:console

Nemesis, since I'm in the same situation as you (wife watching HTPC while husband doing something else via RDP ), your suggestion of using concurrent remote desktop sessions is even better, I'm gonna give it a try and let you know if everything works as expected.

Thanks again for the help and tips

PS. It would be nice though in a future release to give us the possibility to use EG when the session is locked or not even opened, to run other automated tasks (not only HTPC related) with a remote control. Maybe someday, who knows...

[defecta]

SWEET! Thanks guys. That code snippet worked for me too! Excellent work.

NOTE: for my Windows 7 box I needed to change the session ID from 0 to 1 for it to work properly. Running

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query session

from a command prompt will list the sessions and you should be able to tell from that what session you want to use.

[defecta]

Actually that code snippet doesn't work for me when trying to get Event Ghost to run the command using the Start Program action. The error is 'file not found'. I have tried using EG to execute a batch which runs tscon.exe and all kinds of different variations but I can't get EG to successfully trigger the tscon.exe command. Also when trying to configure the Start Program action, the file browser window used for pointing to the executable doesn't show or can't find the tscon.exe command in my SYSTEM32 folder (even though its there).

Any suggestions?

[TRIROG1]

Hi!

I'm reviving this old thread...because i'm also trying to have EG to execute the tscon.exe which is located in %windir%/system32.

Using execute action i can't locate this file
But after i did it manually like:

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eg.plugins.System.Execute(u'C:\\Windows\\System32\\tscon.exe', u'RDP-Tcp#0 /dest:console', 0, False, 2, u'C:\\Windows\\System32\\', False, False)

i get an error
LOG:

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11:41:40            Traceback (most recent call last):
11:41:40              Python script "240", line 13, in <module>
11:41:40                eg.plugins.System.Execute(u'C:\\Windows\\System32\\tscon.exe', u'RDP-Tcp#0 /dest:console', 0, False, 2, u'C:\\Windows\\System32\\', False, False)
11:41:40              File "C:\Program Files (x86)\EventGhost\plugins\System\Execute.py", line 133, in __call__
11:41:40                raise self.Exception(FormatError())
11:41:40            Exception: The system cannot find the file specified.

Any ideas how to solve this?

[TRIROG1]

I also tried making a shortcut wthich points to tscon.exe and has exactly the same parameters.

If i click it the session disconnects, but if i have EG run it

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import os
os.startfile("C:\Users\HTPC\Desktop\End RDP")

i get that the system cannot find the tscon.exe and asks if i wuld like to delete shortcut ...

[kkl]

When using the Start Application action, you might try checking the "Disable WOW64 filesystem redirection for this application". That should at least resolve the file not found error (it did for me when tested).

[TRIROG1]

Awesome!
It works ... - i just managed to lockmyself out of RDP but still ... it works !