KB0011

Sonoran Systems

Article KB0011: 7-April-2005

Automatically Start ArTrac after a computer restart

There may be a time when the the IT department does routine computer operating system (OS) updates, but they forget to restart ArTrac. To get around this problem, you can add a scheduled task in the OS that will automatically execute a program when the OS first comes back up. Below is a set of detailed instructions on how to configure this.

What do I need to enable this function?

The only thing that you will need is a simple script that will be executed by the OS on a OS restart. The purpose of the script is to delay the execution of the ArTrac Application Manager (TMN.exe).

Step 1:

Writing the script

First thing to do is to write a VBScript using your favorite text editor such as Edit or Notepad and when you name the script, give it a .vbs extension.

The commands for the script is provided in the text box below. Simply copy the commands and paste them into your text editor.

Option Explicit '-- This script is used to start ArTrac after a computer OS restart. ' The script will pause 3 minutes (180 seconds) before attempting ' to execute the TMN application. Dim Pgm Set Pgm = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") Wscript.Sleep (180 * 1000) Pgm.Run "C:\ArTrac\TMN.exe Start" Set Pgm = Nothing Wscript.Quit

Save the script to the desired location. In this example, we will save the script to the C:\ArTrac\ directory.

Step 2:

Create a new scheduled task

1) - Open up the Scheduled Tasks Wizard. The Schedule Tasks Wizard can be found in the Control Panel.
Double click on the "Scheduled Tasks" to start the wizard.

2) - Now double click the "Add Scheduled Task" to begin the easy to follow wizard.

3) - Press the 'Next' button to continue with the wizard.

4) - Press the 'Browse' button to locate the script that will be used to start ArTrac. This will open the standard Windows file browse screen as shown below.

5) - Once the script has been located, select the script and press the 'Open' button.

6) - This screen has two purposes, first it is used to name the scheduled task. By default the scheduled task name will be the same as the file being executed. Feel free to edit the name of the scheduled task.

The second thing that this screen does is to determine when the task should be executed. Since we want to automatically restart ArTrac after a computer system reboot, select the 'When my computer starts' option.

Keep in mind that while the script will start as soon as the OS is able to execute applications, ArTrac will not start at this time. The purpose of the script is to pause for 3 minutes before ArTrac is requested to start.

7) - Whenever a application executes, it must run in a users memory space. This next screen is used to set the user account that the script is to execute under. Enter the appropriate Username and Password.

8) - The next screen of the wizard is used to recap the new scheduled task. This informs you that a new scheduled task has been created, what application is to be exected by the scheduled task as well as when the task is to executed.

If you note any problems, you can press the 'Back' button to make any corrections.

Once you have verified that the scheduled task is correctly set up, you can review or may changes to the advanced properties of the scheduled task by placing a check mark in the 'Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish'.

Now press the 'Finish' button to return to the main Scheduled Task page.

9) - Now that you have a new scheduled task created, the main 'Scheduled Task' screen will be displayed with the new task being displayed in the list.

Step 3:

Verify Proper Script Execution

To verify that the scheduled task is working properly, you simply need to restart the computer. If ArTrac is currently running, shut down ArTrac before you restart the computer.

Once the computer has restarted, you will be prompted to login. Once you have successfully logged in, open the "Task Manager" and look at the processing running. If you do not see one of the ArTrac core components running, look for the process called 'WScript'. This is the script that will start ArTrac once the 3 minute timer has expired.

Note : When ArTrac is started by the Schedule Task, you will not see any ArTrac icons in the System Tray. This is because the OS is not able to assign an icon to the System Tray when the user is not actually logged in. This does not mean that ArTrac is not running. If in doubt, look for the ArTrac core processes that are running.