I have an external kiosk application that I'm trying to run it on tablet computer which has Windows 8 OS.
The thing is, that Windows 8 doesn't allow to use any external applications in kiosk mode. Only applications that based on Win 8 are allowed.
The problem with my kiosk application that while running you can drag it with the finger and the task bar and the desktop background are revealed and I don't want that to happen.
I want it to be locked to the screen without any option to move.
The application starts automatically when the win 8 goes up.
1)I tried to search at the registry to cancel part of the touch options. Without any actual result. There are few options to cancel some of the windows widgets at the left and right corners of the screen or cancel the touch option at all.
2)I've got the option to use a 3rd party applications, but I'm trying to prevent it for now.
Forget about windows internal kiosk mode as nightmare - it not works as expected and you can't change this. Create new user 'kiosk' and use next registry key for your app:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"Shell"="C:\\full\\path\\to\\your\\application.exe>"
And configure autologin for this user:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AutoAdminLogon"="1"
"ForceAutoLogon"="1"
"DefaultUserName"="kiosk"
"DefaultDomainName"="<place here pc hostname>"
"DefaultPassword"=""
And you will get the result you want.
Related
I have an application written in VB.NET that I want to move to Win10. It will always be a desktop application, however I would like it to have a start icon / tile in Win 10. Looking around I found this exact question which suggests to create a Metro App (now I believe called Windows App) which launches the desktop app. This is also discussed in this thread. So the questions;
These threads are a little old is the best way in Win10 to give a desktop app a Windows App Tile by using a Windows App as the Launcher for the desktop app?
It appears that in Win10 Microsoft has now allowed non-store apps to be installed in Update Security > SideloadApps. This needs to be enabled to install the App, but does this need to be always enabled. For example what happens after install if the user turns it off, will the app then not start?
For example I see in this link that there are 2 Registry keys to change, basically AllowAllTrustedApps and AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense. Is it possible for my desktop installer to change these keys, install the Windows App (and everything else) and then change the keys back again?
Uninstalling? If I created a Windows App which only launched my desktop app then there is a possibility that the user uninstalls or deletes the Windows App, meaning my desktop app would be orphaned and lost. Any suggestion on solving this?
According to your description, I think what you need is Desktop Bridge. There is no need to use a Windows App as the Launcher for the desktop app.
You can try with Desktop App Converter, with this you can bring your existing desktop apps written for .NET 4.6.1 or Win32 to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).
And after converting, you can replace the Assets generated by Desktop App Converter (DAC) automatically to provide custom Tiles/Icons. For more, you can refer to Manually convert your app to UWP using the Desktop Bridge.
I'm working on a Kiosk system and I need to be able to lock down the keyboard and turn off the logon screen options on the fly. So at startup my code does these things, and if a security dongle is inserted, it undoes them.
Works fine in non-Kiosk, when I right-click the application and select "Run as administrator". The keyboard is locked down (I'm trapping key strokes), but the logon screen continues to come up with all five option buttons. I added debug writes to a file and found that the reason was "access denied".
My Kiosk is set up with a user that has been given administrator rights, and the application pathname (C:\\.exe) has been set as the Shell value in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon. Since this application will run as session 0, I am not sure what else needs to be done to give it the rights to disable and enable the five logon screen options.
I have experience in develop Kiosk application and I advise you next solution. this is universal solution and works as expected. Run application in logon session - is bad idea. Run app Via winlogon regkey wil not run in session0, it will run app in user session.
Windows kiosk mode need next steps:
Create user for kiosk mode
Set next registry key for this user as path to your application:
Windows XP/7:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"Shell"="C:\\full\\path\\to\\your\\application.exe>"
Windows 8 and later:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"Shell"="C:\\full\\path\\to\\your\\application.exe>"
Autologin for kiosk user:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AutoAdminLogon"="1"
"ForceAutoLogon"="1"
"DefaultUserName"="kiosk"
"DefaultDomainName"="<place here pc hostname>"
"DefaultPassword"=""
[Option] If you need to disable Ctrl+Alt+Del, then use this registry key value ("") or you can place there own application:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\taskmgr.exe]
"Debugger"="\"\""
Create kiosk user with this your application as shell and create/activate admin with password. With autologin to load as admin press shift when windows loading and before autologin or while logging out - windows will not autologin and show users list. Or, you can not set autologin and windows will show 2 users: admin and kiosk user with this your software.
To disable user input use WINAPI BlockInput
BOOL WINAPI BlockInput(
_In_ BOOL fBlockIt
);
It can be enabled by ctrl+alt+del - in this case with solution above your programm can disable it again.
i am developing a C#/XAML windows 8 Metro app,
The application works properly on a Windows 8 machine and emulator, but not on the Surface RT tablet. For example, I have a combobox in one of my screens and I bind the data to the combobox and set a default item by
combobox.selectedItem = "some test";
This data appears in the Windows 8 desktop machine and emulator, but the combobox is showing empty on a Surface RT tablet.
Does the combobox control have any problem on a Windows RT tablet?
I a used AnyCPU Configuration, built in Release mode and tested that package on the device which is generated. For the Surface RT do I need to generate an ARM build?
There's not enough information to answer this problem. I would guess that whatever source you use to populate your combo boxes is not accessible from the devices. If it's some sort of file on your computer, that won't work and you need to send it over as a resource. If it's a service call, you may have an authentication issue.
You might try it from a different desktop machine if one is available. This may or may not confirm my guesses.
I have a chat application written in VB.net. It uses SetWindowPos function to set the window to top when a new chat message is received. It works fine also.But in windows 8 it will not bring the window to front when windows 8 apps like reader or photo is running.These apps will be running with full screen mode in Windows 8. So my chat application windows is not appearing at the top when popup occurs. So how can i make it to appear even when these windows 8 apps are running in full screen mode.
Applications with 'UIAccess' are allowed to display on top of the full screen apps. Look at the answer to Windows 8 Layered Windows Over Metro Apps. This question is about layered windows, but that makes no difference. Eric's problem was the same as yours, that his window was not displaying on top of the Metro interface.
In short, you need to:
Declare uiAccess="true" in your application's manifest
Your executable needs to be digitally signed with a trusted certificate.
Your application needs to be installed in a trusted location, i.e. Program Files
Is it possible to automatically launch an application from a USB flash drive (bypassing windows prompt asking user what he wants to do)? on windows XP or vista.
I looked into "autorun.inf" and "open" entry seems to work only for CD drives for Windows XP SP2+ and Vista. Is it possible to launch program automatically on all windows versions?
I don't care if autorun is disabled by user in Windows settings.
First of all, some people choose to disable autorun for security reasons; but Windows computers up to Vista have it enabled. Edit: Apparently the functionality was removed from Windows 7 onwards.
Put a file named autorun.inf in the root of your USB flash drive. This is what's in mine:
[Autorun]
Open=PStart.exe
Action=Start portable apps
Icon=diskicon.ico
What it does: when you insert this disk, starts PStart.exe
On older computers, the program specified in Open= will launch automatically.
On most modern computers (Windows XP SP2+, Vista), dialog "what do you want to do" will be displayed (for security reasons), but what you have in autorun.inf will display as the selected default, with Icon= as icon and Action= as description. If you want to launch it, just click the "OK" button in the dialog.
So, although I'm not aware of any way to start the application (e.g. PStart) immediately, it is possible to insert flash disk with this configuration and start application by clicking OK.
Tested on different computers, running Windows XP without a SP, also on Windows XP sp 1, sp2, sp3, and on various Vistas (not sure which types, but should work all the way from Vista Home Basic to Vista Enterprise Super-Mega-Premium-Extended Edition) and "Windows 7". Also works on Windows 2000 (although autorun on Win2000 for removable drives is not enabled in default configuration).
Note that some applications, in addition, may trigger the "unknown/unsigned exacutable" security dialog, as if you opened them manually.
Edit: For more details, see also:
Autoplay in Windows XP: Automatically Detect and React to New Devices on a System
I've had something set up on my USB keys for a while now. Using the autorun.inf file will work, depending on your system's settings for autorun. Some disable it altogether after that little debacle with Sony a couple years back installing rootkit software on peoples' machines. Here're a couple articles to check out.
Label a Flash Drive with Your Name and Number
Have Your Lost USB Drive Ask For Help (1) or 2
you need UseAutoplay to let this work on usb.
and if you take ShellExecute instead of open you can also open scripts/documents/...
[Autorun]
ShellExecute=System\something.exe
UseAutoplay=1
there are also U3 usb sticks arround, they will be reconised as cdrom drives in windows.
if you put an a autorun.inf on one of those, it will get executed without the user being questioned.
regards morla
I found the solution in this blog
How To Auto-Launch Apps With A USB Stick [Windows]
It worked fine for me
(the article explains how to do it with AutoIT, a 3rd party app that must be installed on the host computer)