SoB: Service Install! **New** Beta 5

[Confused]

Some of you may wish to have a service install for SB, so that it will run when users are logged out etc


I have made a service install, which has worked on my Windows XP machine, but should work on any 2k/XP machine *Fingers crossed, have not tested on any 2k machines*


I would appreciate it if people could try it out on their machines if they have a need for it, and let me know the outcome


Beta 1

Beta 4 - Detects whether you have Windows installed to WINNT or WINDOWS, and uses the relevent registry settings. I have had this working fine on XP, however feedback on 2k would be VERY much appreciated!

**NEW** Beta 5 - This uses the file linked to by Madness, made by Nebob. Has been tested, and working, on both my Windows XP Pro machines I have, input from 2k users would be appreciated


Thanks!


Confused

 

[Actaeon]

Wow, great tool Confused.

Would this run under Win9X?

Thanks
Jonathan

 

[Confused]

Erm, I don't think this will work under 9x, i modded a S@H WinXP install, Win98 is a totally different kettle of fish


I may get round to having a look into doing a 9x one, however I don't have any 98 machines here to test on


Confused

 

[deerslayer]

Thanks Garry I'll give it a try ASAP!

 

[FoBoT]

mmmmm, service , good
thank you
what to do
what to do

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
mmmmm, service , good
thank you
what to do
what to do

What to do?


You go out and install it on computers that you have permission to, but couldn't without a service install



Confused

 

[Shuxclams]

Originally posted by: Confused
Erm, I don't think this will work under 9x, i modded a S@H WinXP install, Win98 is a totally different kettle of fish


I may get round to having a look into doing a 9x one, however I don't have any 98 machines here to test on


Confused

Send me a copy and let me see what I can do.






SHUX

 

[RemyCanad]

Great this should allow some people to now add some machines.

 

[deerslayer]

Originally posted by: RemyCanad
Great this should allow some people to now add some machines.

affirmative

 

[Baldy18]

Will this service install run the client without the icon in the toolbar? If so you may have just scored yourself a couple more machines for SOB.

 

[daweasel]

This has a couple of problems!

1) It doesn't work without editing the reg atleast for me

2) when you start up , two instances of SB start (the hidden one plus another one!)

 

[daweasel]

when you click on the automatically start on windows boot it puts a reg key in there to start on windows startup.

 

[daweasel]

this is stupid. I'm not sure if there is a way to work around this!!

 

[daweasel]

ok the work around!

click the auto start thing so the reg key is placed in there

then rename the sb.exe to sb1.exe

you need to make the necessary edits to the reg keys(in this zip) for the sb1.exe.


You could automate all this into your script btw.

Looking forward to ver 2.0

Also, it's putting windows instead of winnt in the reg key for srany, which doesn't work for my 2k or xp machines. Check that out too

 

[Confused]

As it seems that it is not working totally properly, I am in the process of making up a 2k machine here, and will do some testing and see what I can figure out.


Confused

 

[Confused]

"New" beta client, tested and working on XP, would like feedback on 2k. Check the first post for details


Confused

 

[MADn3ss]

In my experience, when trying to run the SoB client as a service you run into one of two problems:

a) you don't use the "auto-start" option in the client so it will start as a service but the client sits there waiting for the user to hit "start"

b) you use the "auto-start" option in the client (which bypasses the "push start" requirement) but then have two copies of the client.

Using Firedaemon combined with a little program that someone wrote which essentially opens SB.exe, hits "start" and then closes itself I was able to get the client to run as a service on WinXP without having to mess with registry keys.

For those of you who were having trouble running SB as a service, I've written a small utility that starts SB, pushes the start button and exits, to make it possible to run SB with fire daemon.

click (1760 bytes)
http://members.rogers.com/nbozovic/sbautostart.exe

To use, place in your SB dir and run.

It's scriptable too. If everything goes well, the return code is 0. Otherwise:

retcode = 1: failed to create process
retcode = 2: timed out waiting for process to go idle
retcode = 3: other error waiting for process to go idle, full error code is printed to the console
retcode = 4: failed to get a handle for the main sb window
retcode = 5: failed to get a handle for the sb start button
retcode = 6: sb didn't process the message(s)

It works only for windows version v1.0.0, but it's easy to update when new versions come out.

Indeed.

Here's he source for the autostarter thingy.

http://members.rogers.com/nbozovic/sbautostart.cpp

cl sbautostart.cpp /link user32.lib to compile.

This was posted in the Seventeen or Bust thread over at Ars. Not sure if he really wanted that link posted elsewhere (though anyone can see it in the Ars thread) so hopefully it doesn't get too many hits.

Maybe you could incorporate that code or do something similar.

I will keep checking this thread to see if you find a more elegant work-around.

Good luck, the project could really use something like this.

MAD-ness

Team Prime Rib

 

[MADn3ss]

Woops.

I guess ubb doesn't work on this forum.

I will test out the beta and see how it goes. Thanks.

 

[daweasel]

http://www.free-dc.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2306

check this out confused.

 

[daweasel]

nevermind madness beat me too it!!

 

[Confused]

Beta 5


This is using the utility linked by madness, and I have just tested it, and it's fine, on both my XP Pro systems I have here at home.


I would still like feedback on any 2k installations, and hopefully I'll try and fix any problems


Confused

 

[daweasel]

I'll check it out later tonight.

 

[Baldy18]

Originally posted by: Baldy18
Will this service install run the client without the icon in the toolbar? If so you may have just scored yourself a couple more machines for SOB.

 

[MADn3ss]

As a general rule, services will run hidden.

Yes, it can be made to run without an icon. I am not sure what methods are used in this utility but in a typical WinNT service you can alter a lot of settings and in FireDaemon you can do so as well. My guess is that it will run hidden by default.

 

[MADn3ss]

For me, the beta 5 starts and then stops. It seems to install ok as a service (though the text window/DOS box disappears pretty quickly). In the WinXP service manager it shows the SB process, with srvany.exe as the executable. When I manually start the service it pops up an error message saying "The service was started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they have no work to do."

I imagine I am doing something wrong.

I am not so worried about getting it running myself, as I can use firedaemon and I can actually use the regular install as well on this PC, but if you need someone to test it I can maybe toy with it. I didn't go so far as to check the registry entries or anything.