Service - O - Matic 3.00 released

I'm happy to announce that Service - O - Matic 3.00 has been released. It took a while to get to this version, but I wanted to get it perfect. I corrected some user rights problems and included some new features like Flap detection among other things.

With this release all conversions to 64bit are finished. I also tested everything on Windows 2008 Server so I'm confidant that our applications are ready for the future.

It doesn't end here of course. I'm still working on the next Watchdog - O - Matic version that has some great new improvements.

Code signing

Code signing is more important than ever with the release of Windows Vista. People that use your software get a scary warning message when starting your application if the code isn't signed. This might scare potential customers which isn't a good idea.

So I decided to sign all my software. I bought a certificate from Comodo a week ago. It was the cheapest solution and I've read it doesn't matter much where you get your certificate from. But maybe I was wrong.

First they had me send them my ID and two other documents to prove I'm legit. Then they tried to install the certificate. This didn't quite work cause I always use Firefox. Seems they can only install it in Internet Explorer. A warning would have been nice. So I tried it a second time and the certificate was installed. The certificate had the wrong name on it (why did I send those 3 documents?). Also, I couldn't sign my software with this certificate. Contacted support again. They asked me to create several files and try again. Didn't work. Then they asked me to order again right until the payment step. Didn't work.

So a week later I'm still not able to sign my software. I'm testing release candidate 1 of the new Service - O - Matic and I'm eager to release it. But I still have to wait until I can sign it before I can actually release.

HOWTO: Interactive service in Windows Vista

In previous Windows versions, all services run in the same session as the first user who logs on. This session is called session 0. Running services and user applications together in session 0 poses a security risk. In Windows Vista, only system processes and services run in session 0. Vista isolates services in session 0 and makes session 0 noninteractive. The user logs on to session 1, and runs applications in this session. Please refer to this article for a detailed explanation of services and session 0.

The result of this change is that an interactive service is not visible for a user. The service will be running, but you will not see the GUI. However, the user can switch to the session 0 desktop and interact with the service by using the following dialog:



When you click on "Show me the message" you will switch to session 0. Here you can see your interactive service:



Switch back by clicking "Return now".

Note that the "Interactive Services Detection Service" (UI0Detect) has to run before you can see this dialog, so make sure this service is running. The easiest way to do this, is to put this service in your service dependencies. Your service will not start if this service isn't running. Also, change the startup type for this service from 'Manual' to 'Automatic'.

Of course, you can't do much in session 0, so you might want to create a desktop for this session. Create a new interactive service in Service - O - Matic, and use "C:\Windows\Explorer.exe" as the program.



You might want to create a load order group for this service, so other interactive services will start this service automatically.



In your other service, change the service dependencies. Use "UI0Detect" as a service dependency, and the load order group created above as a service group dependency.



If you start your service, you can see the same message as before, but you will have a functioning desktop in session 0.