TPC-2106 desktop shortcut

[pmac]

I am running an executable on a TPC-2106 touch panel monitor. I would like to put a permanent shortcut to the executable on the monitor desktop.  However, any shortcut I place on the desktop is lost when I reboot the monitor. What's the trick to having a desktop shortcut permanently?

Thanks,

pmac 

[TMC-NI]

Hi pmac,

I am not quite sure if this is the case with all Windows CE OS, but I've tested the Touch Panels we have here quite extensively, and all of them exhibited the same behavior.  This may be due to the system image we have, and I am still investigating this.  Normally, the desktop changes should be registered after saving the changes in the registry.  However, like you, I lost all my changes to the desktop after rebooting.

[dbtestcon]

Any update on this?

[Jared_B]

dbtestcon,

This behavior happens on the 2106 because when the TPC boots up everything in the Windows directory (which includes the Desktop) is automatically restored from the default image. 

A possible workaround is to add an entry to the registry key to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init to launch an EXE that will create your shortcuts.  But aside from that, I do not see any other way.  The exe would need to copy some contents from the harddisk to the desktop.  Though this is a bit excessive, it would work.

[dbtestcon]

Works for me...   We automatically start up our HMI on bootup so we can just dump a copy of what needs to be on the desktop from a folder on the harddisk.

Thanks

[StevenA]

On a related topic, I did a project using a TPC-2006 where I wanted to have a completely clean desktop on bootup (even before a startup exe could launch).  The only way I could get this done was to go into the registry and delete the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Explorer\Desktop key and then recreate the the same key with a single string Value of :

Value name = {}

Value Data = {}

The system would then boot with a clean desktop.  I guess if you knew how to create a Desktop value that pointed to your shortcut you could implement it in the registry.