Ignition Auto Start on Panel HMI

This is related to the topic of delaying client start:
http://www.inductiveautomation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=5929&p=18077&hilit=Ignition+startup#p18077

We have an application in which Ignition is running on an industrial PC with a touchscreen as a local HMI. This means the gateway service and the client are running on the same machine. Ideally, we want Windows 7 to Auto Login and go directly to Ignition with no, or minimal access to the desktop during the startup process and no operator intervention.

Of course, we need the Ignition client to wait for the gateway to be running before it can start or it exits on an error message.

We used a batch file doing the PING trick for a delay, but it was unreliable because some of these machines are not connected to a network so Windows 7 returns unavailable instantly on ping attempts and doesn’t wait a second for each attempt. We are currently using Launch Later. We are running into two issues:

  1. With Launch Later, we have to reconfigure it every time an edit is made to the project because the name of the local file changes. I don’t know if there is a way around this, but it is a nuisance.
  2. Our customer doesn’t like the visibility of the Windows desktop while launch later is delaying the start of Ignition. In theory we could run a batch script from Launch Later to lock the desktop, but we have run into issues in the past where Windows is unreliable about displaying the on-screen keyboard when the desktop is locked or a user logs out. With no way to enter ctrl-alt-del on a touchscreen, you are locked out until you plug in a keyboard.

Does anyone have an elegant solution to these issues?

I’ve got two batch files posted here.

Use whichever one fits the bill for you. :smiley:

Hi Jordan,

I saw your awesome batch files in that post. I haven’t tried them, but I believe the desktop would still be accessible while they are running, wouldn’t it? A DOS window will appear with your echoed status messages, but someone could still get to the Windows start menu and generally muck around…

It seems like a minor deal since it will only be visible/available for a minute or so while the gateway is getting going, but our customer doesn’t like machine operators to have access to the desktop at all.

Thanks for your reply.

[quote=“MCC”]
We used a batch file doing the PING trick for a delay, but it was unreliable because some of these machines are not connected to a network so Windows 7 returns unavailable instantly on ping attempts and doesn’t wait a second for each attempt. [/quote]

have you triedping localhost?

Okay, you need one more thing. A little app called nomousy. You can use it to freeze and/or hide the “mouse”. 8)

A wonder it wasn’t called “The Cat” :unamused:

Hey, I don’t make it up, I just report it… :laughing:

As a tangent, but something similar, I’m looking into switching the windows shell to something else (maybe just the command prompt) and see where I go from there. No GUI, no mousy…

[quote=“JordanCClark”]
As a tangent, but something similar, I’m looking into switching the windows shell to something else (maybe just the command prompt) and see where I go from there. No GUI, no mousy…[/quote]

For those with daughters that watched Dora the Explorer:
– I did it! I did it! I did it! Hooray!
See this post here.

Ah yes, Dora.

Brian Regan does a hilarious bit where he imagines the writer’s table where the guy who was supposed to come up with the song for the “map” character’s introduction is called on, but he hadn’t prepared anything.

Poor quality, but: youtube.com/watch?v=g1nqPSxf … re=related

I lost it the first time I saw this, but yeah, you’d have to have a Dora-watching daughter to really get it.