I've written a Autoit script that starts a GUI application, when the application starts there is a login form. The scripts fills the login form and tries to log in. Then it records the time it took to login to the application and shuts the application down afterwards, writes a output file with the time it took.
The thing is, I can't get the application to start unless Im logged in as the user the Scheduled task is running on. So my question is:
Is there any way to start a GUI application even though the user isn't logged in?
Or is the only way to have a user always logged in?
If you are trying to control a gui application via simulated clicks and stuff, that application needs to be displayed. You might eventually work out how to launch the application via command line or whatever, but your clicks and scripted keyboard entry simply won't work.
Try to run the script as the System user. That user should always be "logged in". But maybe something prevents your app running as long as the Windows login screen is visible. I'm not sure what that could be and I've seen applications run on the Windows login screen (for example, the VPN tool), so it might work.
Related
Let’s say I have a tcp/ip server application that I wrote in win32 c++ as a console application.
Now I want this application to run automatically in the background as soon as the system finishes booting with the console window hidden, and not requiring the user to login to his account. Additionally I would like a small icon to appear in the users tray after the user login that the user can use to hide and unhide the console application started before login.
How would I do this in windows 10/11? Or do you have any ideas how to approximate this behavior?
To run an app in the background, especially outside of a user session, you need to make it run as a service. But then it couldn't have a console anymore.
Due to security concerns, from Windows Vista onward, a service can't interact with user sessions (read up about Session 0 Isolation), and so cannot directly display its own tray icon. You would need to instead implement the tray icon in a separate non-service process that is started whenever a user logs in (either using the Registry's Run keys, or by having the service monitor SERVICE_CONTROL_SESSIONCHANGE notifications for user logins and then call CreateProcessAsUser() when detected).
If you want the user to see a UI to interact with the service, you would have to create your own UI for that purpose. The service process would not have a UI of its own, but a UI process (whether that is the tray icon process itself, or another process it spawns upon user command) can use an IPC mechanism of your choosing, such as a named pipe or socket, to communicate with the service as needed - to retrieve status for display, to invoke tasks in the service, etc.
Is it possible for a Windows service to force a user to login from the windows user login screen? I've seen where LogMeIn can do it. This is assuming, of course, that I have both the username and password for the user.
Is LogMeIn using an actual method (non-automated), or are they simply quickly automating the task of logging in my selecting the username and password fields and typing it in?
You should create a WindowStation, and a Desktop inside that. Your service would create the WindowStation and connect that to the user you want to log in, then I suppose you would periodically take a screenshot of the created desktop to present somewhere else.
You may want to start reading the documentation at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms687105%28v=vs.85%29.aspx and linked pages, then ask a more specific question.
I don't know if this method can be used to log in at the Console (the window station attached to the physical video card/keyboard of the computer), but if this has to happen automatically I'd avoid using the Console, but a separate Window Station.
EDIT: as it happens to say on the very page I linked (my bad), if a session for the user exists and the service tries to connect to it, it is opened; if it does not exist then it is created anew, and a desktop (named "default") is attached to it. If your service only has to log the interactive user in you should use the auto-login feature of windows instead.
Yes, you can auto login using Windows.
You didn't specify OS but for Windows 7/8 read this, and for Server 2003/2008 (and possibly 2012, but I haven't checked)
check out this Microsoft article.
I have developed a C# Windows Forms application that runs in the background as a systray icon and does some stuff when it's clicked. It is supposed to launch when Windows starts and run continously, and a normal user without administrator rights shall not be allowed to shut it down.
What is the best way to do this? I initially intended to run it on the LocalSystem account through Task Scheduler, but then I learned (the hard way) about Session 0 isolation (i.e. the application will run but its UI elements do not show). When I run it with the logged in user, even if it runs elevated, the user can still shut it down through task manager (without requiring elevation).
Is there any way to give a process from LocalSystem access to the UI? I have a winlogon and a csrss process from LocalSystem running in session 1, so I guess it can be done, I just don't know how. Or is there maybe an easier way to disallow users to shut down a process of their own through the task manager? The only other option I can think of is to create an extra Windows Service that keeps polling if the app is running, and immediately launches it again if someone kills it - but that seems incredibly clumsy (also, I want it to stay dead when it crashed by itself, to avoid a single bug causing infinite loops of process creation).
Deponds on why they can't shut it down.
The natural way to go would to have created a service, started by a high priv account, and then had the desktop app just show what it was doing.
If there's something that they should see, but don't becasue they aren't running the service monitor app. (and acknowledge message back to the service), send them an email, send their boss an email, send yourself one and then go shout at them.....
Be a lot easier than trying to get the lid back on this tin of worms.
A nice way to make sure the desktop app is ruuning, would be simply to schedule it to run every X, but drop out immediately if it already is or the somethingwenthorriblywrong flkag is set.
Not worth writing a service to check if it's still there, as they could kill that as well, unless you want to make that a service they can't kill. :(
You are trying to be too draconian with this. Add some sort of auditing so you can see it dies or was shutdown, monitor that and deal with any adverse reports. It's a heck of a lot easier, and gives manage something to do...
You can run an administrative process in the user's logon session. One method would be to for a master process (a system service) to duplicate its own token, use SetTokenInformation to change the session associated with the token, and then call CreateProcessAsUser. The lpStartupInfo parameter can be used to associate the process with a particular window station and desktop. It may be necessary to explicitly change the permissions on the window station and desktop first.
HOWEVER, this is a bad idea from a security standpoint, because GUI applications are vulnerable to malicious messages sent from other processes on the same desktop ("shatter attacks").
It would be safer to run the process in the user's own context but apply an ACL to it. This can be done using the lpProcessAttributes parameter to CreateProcess or CreateProcessAsUser, or with the SetSecurityInfo function. I've never tried this, but it should in theory prevent the user from using task manager to close the process.
If you are creating the process from the user's context, then the user will be the owner, so a sufficiently knowledgeable person could change the permissions back in order to terminate the process. If you need to block this hole, using CreateProcessAsUser from a privileged master process (the token can be duplicated from one of the existing processes in the user's session) should (again, in theory) mean that the user is not the process owner.
Another potential issue: if you listen for messages indicating that the user is logging out (in order to exit) such a message could be faked. If you don't then you need to find some other way of exiting when the user logs out. You may need to experiment here, I'm not sure how the system will react.
In windows 7, is there a way to have every login go to the same user session. So when a person is met with the login screen, they login and can continue working on that same user session. I am asking this because each user has their own login, but on this machine I need a program to be running across all user sessions. Since that doesn't seem feasible, I was just going to have them all login to the same user session.
Is this possible?
The appropriate way to solve this would be to have the program run as a service, and have a client UI that loads on startup 'hook' into the service process. Loading multiple users to the same session space would effectively violate the entire windows security model.
So, you either need to use a shared user for this, or a shared process (either local as a service, or remote as a server)
So, there's one possible way you might be able to get this to work, and that's to set this up as an interactive service. Definitely not a secure way to keep your system, but if you are able to make it work, it should work for your purposes:
Interactive services (in particular, read 'using an interactive service'):
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms683502(v=vs.85).aspx
Making srvany.exe (to run non-services as a service) on Windows7/Windows 2008:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverMigration/thread/98a97aee-c62b-4683-94ab-3777899cf7de/
Please let me know how do I run the app under current logged in user from the service.
To give you background, I have a VB.NET Windows service whose sole functionality is to run a Winform App at a specified time. Apart from that it also sets a system wakeup timer so that the system can be woken up at the specified time, if it goes into standby/sleep, to run the app. This service has to cater to XP/Vista/Win7 desktops on our network. This service won't run on servers and laptops.
The Winform App shows a UI for the user to provide some inputs. If the user does not provide the input within 15 minutes, then it defaults the value and then goes into system tray icon. The user can click on the icon and change the values later (within in a specified time frame and that too only twice).
There is absolutely no interaction between the service and the winform app apart from the service starting the app. It also monitors if the app has been killed by the user/crashed. If it has been killed/crashed, then a new instance is run after 30 mins from previous run.
If there is no user logged on, then also I want the app to be run at the specified time. As I said before, the app has a default timer. So if some user has just logged off from the system, then defaults would be set by the winform app.
Now coming to why I am stuck with this design - I cannot use TaskScheduler because it has been disabled on all machines and security team is not willing to change it. TaskScheduler had the option to wakeup the machine from sleep and other things. So basically I ended up creating a service which is acting like task scheduler.
Currently when I run the app.exe via process.start() within the service, its running under SYSTEM account as the service is also running under LOCAL SYSTEM. So basically I am not getting any UI. Is there anyway to run it under the current logged in user? I am not worried about multiple user login as we wont be running it on servers and switch user is not enabled on our desktops. Even if somebody has done a remote login via mstsc, then also I need the run the app and show the UI to the user.
Please let me know how do I run the app under current logged in user from the service.
Thanks
askids
There were some additional comments that I posted. But I somehow cannot see it :(
Coming back to the original question. I was able to figure it out after several trial and errors. I will put it in detail.
With Vista and above, services run in isolation from other user sessions. They run in session 0. User sessions run in 1 and above. So basically you need to emulate the process as current logged in user.
Use WTSEnumerateSessions and
get of sessions. Check if the sesion
state is active. This will be
current logged on user session. If
there are no active sessions, it
means there is no logged on user. In
my case, there will be only 1 logged
on user. So I need not figure out
the active session (like others may
need to do).
Use WTSQueryUserToken to get the user token in the active session.
Create a primary user token using DuplicateTokenEx
Create an environment using CreateEnvironmentBlock
Use the information above in the CreateProcessAsUser
The reason why it was working in XP and not in Vista was because it looks like the startup default information is different. After I set wShowWindow flag of the startupinfo structure, the GUI would start appearing.
Dim StartupInfo As New STARTUPINFO()
StartupInfo.cb = Marshal.SizeOf(StartupInfo)
StartupInfo.dwFlags = STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW
StartupInfo.wShowWindow = WINDOW_STATUS.SW_SHOWNORMAL
One more additional info. I was trying to set the default desktop using
StartupInfo.lpDesktop = "WinSta0\\Default"
because of which the application would crash upon launch. So I commented it out.
I still have one final issue. The launched app is not in focus. The GUI appears, but in background. But I am thinking, it will once again have to do with some parameters like above. Once I figure it out, I will add in the details.