Hi,
Can anyone point me to some documentation about msrsautostart.exe?
On my CE device, I have a pointer to this application in \Windows\Startup but nothing happens when I reboot the device.
Thanks,
Dogulas
This is what I had to do:
When I created the link by copying MsrsAutoStart.exe and selecting "paste link" in the \Windows\Startup folder, the link appears with a size of about 55 bytes. When I look in the properties window of that link, I see two tabs. The shortcut tab has a target containing:
"\Program Files\msrs\bin\cf\MsrsAutoStart.exe"
which is correct for my machine. When I edit this field and put all the parameters in it, I notice that the byte count goes to zero. If I then look at the properties, I see that the shortcut tab is missing.
Through trial and error, I discovered, at least on my machine, that there is a limit of 117 bytes that you can put in that field. Any more and the link goes into that wierd state and is unrecoverable. I must delete it and create a new one.
To get around this limitiation, I had to put the arguments into a text file that I called "DssArgs.txt". The contents of which look like this:
-p:50000
-t:50001
"-m:\Program Files\msrs\bin\cf\SumoPlayer.hardware.manifest.xml"
I had to put this in the root directory because there doesn't seem to be anything like a Path variable in CE and I am up against that byte limitation. The resulting value of the target field in the shortcut tab of the link property looks like this:
"\Program Files\msrs\bin\cf\MsrsAutoStart.exe" "@DssArgs.txt"
At least now DssHost starts up and I'm on to my next roadblock. I don't know if this is the right approach, because I've found no documentation on the subject. Anyway this is just FYI.
MsrsAutoStart.exe takes a command as an argument. When you create the shortcut and place it in \Windows\Startup folder the target should be
"<path to msrsautostart>\MsrsAutoStart.exe" \windows\cmd.exe /c <path to command file>\yourfile.cmd
So in your case it would be
"\Program Files\msrs\bin\cf\MsrsAutoStart.exe" \windows\cmd.exe /c "\Program Files\msrs\bin\cf\startmycommand.cmd
In startmycommand.cmd you would have the following
"<full path to cf.dsshost>\cf.dsshost.exe" /p:50000 /t:50001 /m:<your manifest file>
The manifest file should be in the same folder as cf.dsshost.exe and you should only provide the file name and not the full path. For example
"\Program Files\msrs\bin\cf\cf.dsshost.exe" /p:50000 /t:50001 /m:mymanifest.manifest.xml
By the way you should not need the cf folder. All the stuff in there should be in the bin folder. If you decide to keep the cf folder make sure that the setting in VS when you deploy are correct.
Hope this helps,
Ioana
Ioana,
Thank you for your response.
First, thanks for letting me know that the CF folder is not necessary. In another thread someone told me to copy the \bin\CF folder and contents from my development machine to my CE machine as an alternative to deploying Dss (which I'm still having trouble with, but that is another issue). They should have said to copy the contents of that folder to my \bin folder. I now have that straightened out.
Next:
I have been trying to get MsrsAutoStart to work like you suggested with no luck. But, I think I finally figured out what's going on.
I have a link in \Windows\Startup to \Program Files\msrs\bin\MsrsAutoStart.exe. In the shortcut tab of the properties window I have:
"\Program Files\msrs\bin\MsrsAutoStart.exe" \Windows\cmd.exe /c "\Program Files\msrs\bin\DssStart.cmd"
The file \Program Files\msrs\bin\DssStart.cmd contains:
"\Program Files\msrs\bin\cf.DssHost.exe" /p:50000 /m
umoPlayer.Hardware.Manifest.xml
If I run "\Program Files\msrs\bin\cf.DssHost.exe" /p:50000 /mumoPlayer.Hardware.Manifest.xml from Start/Run - then Dss starts
If I run \Windows\cmd "\Program Files\msrs\bin\DssStart.cmd" from Start/Run - then Dss starts
But, if I run the link, or reboot, MsrsAutoStart runs and gives me 15 seconds to abort, then it creates a command window which promptly says:
\Program: File not found
and then dissappears.
What seems to be happening is that MsrsAutoStart is stripping off the Quotations from around "\Program Files\msrs\bin\DssStart.cmd" and it is trying to pass \Program as a parameter to cmd.exe.
What does MsrsAutoStart buy me other than a fifteen second delay? Can't I just run a batch file that launches DssHost with the proper parameters?
If I have to use MsrsAutoStart, how do you recommend getting around this issue?
Thanks,
Dogulas
One way to avoid the problem with the space in the path is to move dssstart.cmd into a different folder whose path does not contain a space. Then update the path in the script.
The advantage of running MsrsAutoStart is the 15 second delay. Otherwise you could put a shortcut to DssStart.cmd in \Windows\Startup\ and it will run everytime on reboot.
Hope this helps,
Ioana
Thanks Ioana,
I think I'll take the second way. I like the organization of having all the msrs stuff in the same place. If I need to have DssHost not running, I can comment it out in the command file and reboot.
Thanks for all your help,
Dogulas