Hey all. We need to have our ticket software running 24/7 at my movie theater, and I was wondering if there was some way to prevent (or hinder) it from being closed. We're using XP, and the program is RTS ticketing, if it matters.
I've done a bit of research, and the only results I could find involved mucking about in the registry, which I would rather not do. the computer isnt mine, I'm probably the only one that could fix things if they went wrong, and I'm just not that familiar with the Registry anyway. Therefore, another program to do this would be my first choice.
You could just have a scheduled task relaunch the program every few minutes, unless that would open a new window instead of changing the focus. Or you could create a script to check if the program is running and relaunch it.
I don't know of any way to actually prevent a program from being closed (think of the security issues that would cause - popups you can't close, etc). But if you just want it to automatically restart every time it's closed, you could write a batch file like this:
@echo off :start @rem **Notepad is used here as an example - substitute the executable of your choice** %SystemRoot%\system32\notepad.exe goto start
But be forewarned that this is an infinite loop. It's probably not the solution you want, because infinite loops very rarely are. It will keep opening that program every time it's closed, forever and ever. The only way to stop it is to close the command line window it's running from (which, if your program runs full screen like I'm assuming it does, will be very difficult) or turn off the computer.
Also, I just used a goto. I feel dirty now...
Does your software require input from a standard keyboard? If you could use something proprietary - where they can't type Alt+Tab, Ctrl+Alt+Del, and other such key combinations - then that would make your problem far easier to solve.
The other probabbly better option than a batch file or script that keeps opening the program would be to run the program as a service. This would allow you to set it up so that if the program ever crashes or somone closes it, windows would open it again instantly. I believe there is a windows utility available out there that will allow you to do this. I would need to know what exactly the application does and why it needs to stay open all the time to know if this would even be possible though, as not all applications run well as a service.
