Starting my program before login? Win XP

[godronus]

Is it possible to start my program running before a user has logged in? Somebody mentioned I might be able to run it as a service using FireDaemon. Cannot seem to get it to start at startup though. I am still having to manualy start the service. Is there another way to do this? Possibly without a service?

What I am trying to do is have my program run in the background.. Then at a specific time, do something for a specified period. The problem is if a user is not currently logged on my program won't run if I add it to the startup menu. I am running windows xp. developing with Bloodshed Dev - C++.

Would it be possible to get my program to log on as a user at the specified time?

[Mick]

You need to create it using the Service API's. It sounds like your not doing that (using srvany?). Or your not setting the correct configuration when you call CreateService(...)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dllproc/base/services.asp
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dllproc/base/writing_a_servicemain_function.asp

If it is something that should be done at X date/time then you can also think about the task scheduler.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/taskschd/taskschd/itask.asp

[bLogik]

login etc is handled by msgina
you can use this stub as a starting point
http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/W-P/system/misc/article.php/c5683/

[Mick]

login etc is handled by msgina
you can use this stub as a starting point
http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/W-P/system/misc/article.php/c5683/

And this relates in what way to the question being asked?

[bLogik]

in this way -> Would it be possible to get my program to log on as a user at the specified time?

you could log on automatically with a special user at a given time and instead of running userinit run your own app. for all other user you of course still do userinit.
then you can define a sas sequence, which gets triggerd when your special user is finished and you log off again

[Mick]

in this way -> Would it be possible to get my program to log on as a user at the specified time?

you could log on automatically with a special user at a given time and instead of running userinit run your own app. for all other user you of course still do userinit.
then you can define a sas sequence, which gets triggerd when your special user is finished and you log off again

Using a sledgehammer to drive a nail.... :D