Run DSC Tag Engine as an NT service

[josborne]

We would like to run the DSC Tag Engine as an NT service. This would allow it to launch automatically when the OS (Win2K) restarts- even if the user hasn't logged in yet.

I am quite familiar with process of registering a LV-built exectuable as a NT service (using instsrv.exe and srvany.exe, editting the registry to enter the path, and setting runAsService=True in the INI file).

I have tried two methods (with lots of variations and debugging attempts). Both methods produce OS crashes. These crashes say: "DSCEngine.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. Error log is being generated." and occur when the Tag Engine attempts to start (the engine's splash screen pops and says "Loading configuration..." and then
the crash occurs)

The two methods methods I tried are:

1. Create a little LV-built application that launches the tag engine. Register it as a service (using the method described above with srvany.exe, etc.). To be extra safe, I even set runAsService=True in DSCEngine.ini, too. Crashe ocurrs just after the engine starts to load.

2. Register DSCEngine.exe as a service directly (with srvany.exe, again). This produces the same crash when the engine starts to load.


NOTES:

The SCF file is created from scratch and is EMPTY (no tags). The data directory is empty. No device servers will load or anything. The Tag Engine is installed in the default LV location (C:\Program Files\National ...). This drive is NTFS. The SYSTEM account has FULL CONTROL permissions on all directories on this drive. The NI website appears to have no information related to this crash or how to run the engine as a service.

Got any ideas?
It seems to me like there will be other custome
rs who wish to have the ability to run the engine as a service, too.

[josborne]

Just for the record, I will answer my own question.

I received a reply from NI regarding this. They stated that it was impossible right now... but might be possible in the future someday (I think they recognized the usefulness of running the engine as a service, but it wouldn't be easy to do). The reason it is impossible with the current Tag Engine has to do with security and lack of user-interface.

[David Moerman]

I am wondering if NI has done anything further with this issue yet, or perhaps there is a simple work-around? I'm sure there is a long list of users that would like to start logging when the computer restarts, without anyone having logged into the OS. Definitely add my name to the list.

[cs42]

No, they haven't done anything noticeable (at least in LV 7.0).

Instead it went worse: with LV 7.0 every developer needs (local) administration rights to start LV DSC without strange messages! What a pain for every network administrator (I can't imagine that all NI dev people and testers have local administration rights (and still access to the intra-/internet)).