HouseBotServer.exe command line switches?

[Steve Horn]

Are there any? I'm playing around with Win10 TaskScheduler with the idea of doing a system restart every night followed by a restart of HouseBotServer.exe. Or maybe just a restart of HBserver. Do I need to kill it and then restart it or just have Taskscheduler start it and will it restart if its already running (doubtful). Is there a command line switch that would force a HBserver restart?

[ScottBot]

Is there a command line switch that would force a HBserver restart?

Sorry, but no.

It also might be tricky to gracefully kill it since it prompts before closing.

[Steve Horn]

Thanks. No worries; had to ask.

[Steve Horn]

Semi related, as I'm still playing with starting HB server upon a Win 10 restart. But even before that, here I found that if I run HB as administrator (either via right click selection or built into the properties using the compatibility check box) the HB server starts right away, after answering the irritating "Do you want to allow this app blah blah.."). But if you (or I) do not start as admin, the HB message window opens and just stares at you. No messages, no loading, nothing. I have to kill it with Process Explorer. Is this just me?

[ScottBot]

I have never seen that myself.

[Steve Horn]

Of course not. This has been the Win7->10 conversion from hell. The point of the run-as-admin question was because I wanted to reboot the server every night and restart HB to clear up issues with RS232 serial ports that, after the new box, new OS, new multi-port COM port cards, had become very unreliable. (All the home theater stuff is controlled via RS232.) The old serial cards wont work in the box; no PCI slots. The latest “fix” is to abandon the erratic bad cards (either HW or driver issues; dunno which. Don’t care.) and use a 4 headed USB-to-RS232 converter. So far so good after one night. Still thought it might be a good idea to flush everything each night. Putting HouseBotServer.EXE in Startup doesn’t work, at least not yet. Thats when I ran into the admin/no-admin launch peculiarity.
Sorry for the long story, but I thought it might help to explain what’s going on here.

[ScottBot]

Not sure what to suggest, but if there's something I can add (command line switch for something), let me know. I'm not sure if I can implement a 'restart' option unless there is some system level way of doing that... which would probably just complicate the admin launch issues you are already experiencing. I can look into it though if that's the only solution.

My setup uses pretty loose admin/user account settings for security. But I have a link to a batch file that starts HouseBot in a loop in case it crashes for some reason (I run a lot of alpha code there). That link is in the \Users\[you]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup directory.

[Steve Horn]

I still need to do some testing/legwork on this. It APPEARS that, at least here, HB wants/needs to run as Admin. But what I haven’t determined is how to launch HB as admin from Startup. Seems like youre going to get the “Do you want to allow this app...” prompt, which of course you can’t answer from a BAT file. May be a way in PowerShell. No work needed on your end; thanks. The RS232 serial port problem MAY be fixed with the replacement of cards by a 4 headed USB dongle. So far so good.