Running Network-Reliant Processes on Startup

Question

I'm in charge of deploying and modifying a bit of in-house software that is meant to run on end-user workstations, which run either Windows 7 or XP SP3. The goal is to maximize the amount of time the software runs on node workstations.

At present, there is a shortcut in every workstation's startup folder that runs the process in the background at login. This works well enough, but I would like to see this software run on startup rather than waiting for a user to login.

The only kinks in all of this are that it's all on an Active Directory domain and that the software itself needs an active Internet connection to run properly.

I've gathered that Task Scheduler is probably the way to go for this, but what what's the best approach to take here?

Agree with Michael: if its *in house* software then get the developers to code it to run as a service & to test for an Internet connection & wait for one to become available before doing anything — Rob Moir, May 15 '13 at 05:23

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 15 '13 at 03:02

If you are suggesting that the software terminates if it fails internet communications, then I suggest using a re-occuring task, that runs a bat file every five minutes, that checks if the process is already running, and launches it if it is not.

tasklist /nh | findstr /I /C:"theapp.exe" || start "theapp.exe"

Note tasklist is not available on Win2k! :)

Running Network-Reliant Processes on Startup

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