Starting FMS Light (2009) so it does not contact the server

[eugenebrooks]

FMS Light (2009) looks for a server connection to check for updates the first time it is started after installation. There are flags for a command line start, using the run function on Windows XP, that prevent it from doing this. I used them at an off-season even one year, but have lost the information about them. Does anyone know what they are? It is important now that the server is off-line and the first start will hang looking for the server.

Eugene

[Mark McLeod]

I don't remember the flags, but if it helps here is an earlier version that did not perform the manifest check at all. The drawback is there is no Audience screen.
http://team358.org//files/programmin...ight-358XP.zip

[timytamy]

We used FMS light for our off season, and we simply ran it once in the shop with a connection before taking it to the field. It would still try to connect but it would time out and continue. Just make sure you launch both the FMS and audience programs while online.

[daniel_dsouza]

you could just put a help flag, and tell cmd to list all the possible flags. Sometimes putting a garbage flag "-sdsfd" works too, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[kmitchell]

Originally Posted by timytamy

We used FMS light for our off season, and we simply ran it once in the shop with a connection before taking it to the field. It would still try to connect but it would time out and continue. Just make sure you launch both the FMS and audience programs while online.

Unfortunately connecting once isn't currently possible in this case since the server FMS light is trying to connect to is currently offline. FIRST has been made aware of the problem and is working to get the server back online. In the meantime if someone who has a working FMS Light setup could send me the "manifest" .xml files contained in "C:\Program Files\FIRST\Launcher" I could test a theory that I think we could use as a workaround.

[kmitchell]

Originally Posted by daniel_dsouza

you could just put a help flag, and tell cmd to list all the possible flags. Sometimes putting a garbage flag "-sdsfd" works too, but I wouldn't recommend it.

This assumes that some type of help feature was available. The launcher shell appears to just ignore flags it doesn't recognize. I did see some interesting things but nothing successfully started the program.

[timytamy]

This is my entire P:\Program Files (x86)\FIRST\Launcher folder.