My Service that communicates with PXI fails to start on boot

[CXROGuy]

I have a service that communicates with my PXI crate. Normally it works fine, but whenever the computer is rebooted my service fails to start. We manually start the service after the computer comes up, and then it works fine again. Is there a service dependency I can specify in the service configuration to solve this problem?

[Sean_C.]

Hello CXROGuy,

What kind of service is communicating with your PXI Chassis?  If it is an executable, you could try having it run at start up.  To do this you will simply need to place your .exe in the Windows Startup Directory.  Follow the instructions in the following Knowledge Base to do this:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/8B0772F1E926C55D86256EE900778BDE?OpenDocument

Does this answer your question?  Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Regards,
Sean C.

[CXROGuy]

Thanks for the quick reply. If I read it correctly, the link you provided describes a way to start a program when logging in, right? But what I'm running is a Windows Service, because I can't force my users to log in to the computer in order to start my program - the computer needs to be able to run in a remote location with no user interaction (from the Start menu, see Settings -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services, for the list of services running on your computer). And my program needs to continue running when noone is logged into the computer.




The trouble is, it appears that my service is starting before some unknown (to me) NI service, resulting in a crash because I need to have that other service running before mine. So what I need is to specify that service in the dependencies list for mine. I tried the string 'nipxirmu', but that didn't change the situation so apparently it's not the correct string.




If I can't get that, I'll just have to put a Sleep in my service for a minute or two on startup, but that's obviously not ideal nor is it a surefire method of avoiding the problem.




Let me know if I've misinterpreted your post.

[Sean_C.]

Hello,

I just found the following Knowledge Base on Microsoft's site:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;193888

I believe this is the information you are looking for.  This Knowledge Base details how to make one service wait on other services before starting.

Let me know if this does not help.

Regards,
Sean C.

[CXROGuy]

Now we're getting somewhere 🙂 That link describes EXACTLY what I'm trying to do, except that it hasn't worked, and I see two possibilities for that:

• I set the registry value as a string (REG_SZ type), not a multi-string (REG_MULTI_SZ type) as the link you provided describes. Next time I have a chance, which won't be until next Monday because the system is busy, I'll try that.
  
• I used the wrong service name. I mentioned the service name I tried before (but I forget it now and can't see it from this window); I'm hoping you or someone else can tell me the correct name(s) of the service(s) that I need to put in my service's DependOnService registry value.
  

[Sean_C.]

Hello,

Without knowing exactly what you are doing, it is hard for me to say which NI service could be causing the problem.  I agree that the most likely suspect would be the nipxirmu service.  But if that does not solve the problem, I would recommend trying some of the other NI services that are listed.

Let me know your results.

Regards,
Sean C.