Question

Adding startup script programmatically using C/C++

Asked by: Metacrawler

Hello Community,

I want a tool to execute when the computer is starting up. I'm doing this by group policy at the moment and it works fine. Now I want my tool to add itself to the list of programs to execute at startup (by group policy).

Can anyone give me a hint how I can programmatically add the tool to the startup policy? Code in C/C++ is appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Greetings,
Metacrawler

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Asked On
2009-09-07 at 04:50:42ID24712411
Tags

script

,

group policy

,

windows xp

,

startup

Topics

Windows Programming

,

Microsoft Visual C++

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: jkrPosted on 2009-09-07 at 08:37:17ID: 25275744

You could just place a registry entry at

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

 

by: MetacrawlerPosted on 2009-09-07 at 22:21:41ID: 25278821

Hello jkr,

In my oppinion, the "Run" key is not right place for that. The tool should execute _before_ a user logs in and only once at boot. So I suppose setting a "Startup" script via group policy is a better place. Startup scripts complete execution before even the login window appears.

 

by: MetacrawlerPosted on 2009-09-07 at 23:31:57ID: 25279079

I'll raise the points for this question to 500. So feel motivated :-)

 

by: MetacrawlerPosted on 2009-09-07 at 23:41:18ID: 25279121

Ooops, forget to adjust points... here they are...

 

by: MetacrawlerPosted on 2009-09-09 at 00:12:35ID: 25288871

Ok, starting as a service as well as starting via group policy causes problems that seem to be unsolveable...

I'll use the Run-key (as suggested by jkr) and shutdown using a timeout. I'll set the timeout to a value that is large enough to give the shell the time it needs to startup completely - before the shutdown kicks in.

I was looking for a way to execute my tool _before_ a user is logged in, but there seems no way to do that.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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