Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

How do I go about making a program launch automatically when logging into the Driver Station account of the Classmate? More specifically, it's a camera tracking program that will run in the background while the robot is operating. Any help or tips would be appreciated!

Re: Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

Re: Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

I've already seen that page, actually :)

It works perfectly for the Developer account (which loads Windows 7 like any other computer). However, the Driver Station account still only loads the Driver Station software.

Re: Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

Sorry, I think I may have misphrased my question. I don't particularly need the vision tracking program to launch when the Classmate is turned on. I want the program to launch whenever I log in to the Driver Station account or the Developer account.

Normally, I would just schedule a task that runs whenever I log on to the account. However, the Driver Station account restricts access to common Windows 7 features, so I don't see how I would create a task for that account. Is there any way to schedule a task from the Developer account so that the program launches whenever I log into the Driver Station account?

Re: Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

If you must start something when the driverstation launches. One of the things that loads automatically with the driverstation is the dashboard.exe

which is located in c:\Program Files\FRC Dashboard\dashboard.exe

You can replace that .exe with any exe and it will lauch when the driverstation is launched and default dashboard is selected.

If you use the dashboard and would like that to lauch as well... you can rename the real dashboard exe to something else, and create a script named dashboad.exe which runs your script and launches the dashboard as well.

You will need to take care of closing your program somehow on your own.

However, any reason why you just don't delete the DriverStation account and use one account for everything? (In which case the above Windows 7 method posted should work.)

FRC no longer locks you into a particular account on the driverstation.

Hope this helps,
Kevin

Re: Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

A neat little trick to have is when you open the driver account, open the task manager by hitting cntrl+shift+escape and then hit file and select new task then type "explorer.exe" and that should start the windows explorer. This will bring up the start menu, the task bar and the desktop itself. Hope this helps!

Re: Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

The backstory on the Driver account is that it was done in order to make the Windows computer run less of Windows. The fear was that in the middle of the match, the laptop would start downloading updates, putting up dialogs about buying shoes at from Amazon, etc.

After using the laptop as DS for a number of years now, I think people are less afraid of that sort of thing, so the FTAs won't look at you funny if you run the driver or your other account. It is your laptop, and you can decide what accounts you make, which you run, and what you use for a dashboard.

They will, however, still look at you funny if your machine starts installing updates or buying shoes off amazon during a match and you expect them to help you. So the Driver account is there if you want to use it.

Greg McKaskle

Re: Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

Greg,

This is still a great idea. I still suffer from my kids installing spotify and itunes on any laptop they get their hands on... including the driverstation :(.

This may be a little much, but one of the things FIRST can do in the future to help teams with this scenario while not limiting what teams can do from a permissions standpoint is provide a script or checklist of Windows 7/8 items which teams should disable on their DriverStation.

We have such a script setup, which disables certain services, to prevent those things from happening and I am willing to share.

Teams can decide to run through the driverstation checklist or not.

Regards,
Kevin

Re: Add startup program to Driver Station account
 

Please do share it with FIRST. The primary thing the Driver account does is to modify the shell program. There are less drastic measures, and if you share your work, they may adopt it.

By the way, I didn't mention it in the other thread, but once your Dashboard is launched, it can be your conduit to launch other stuff.

Greg McKaskle