RunServicesOnce Registry Key

[Irongeek]

Hi all,
I'm using Windows XP and I've put some stuff in:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce

but it never seems to run and the values from this key are never deleted. Anyone else ever have these kinds of issues?

[Cemetric]

I seem to recall there was a problem with the run keys in the pre-SP1 era of Windows XP ...Are you running any SP ??

Also the run registry keys run in a sequence ...maybe something is holding the other back ??

Any more info available that could help ??

.C.

[Irongeek]

Thanks. I'm runging XP Pro, SP2. I;m trying to add an acount before the login prompt shows up. That way I can have it automagicaly login to the account, do some stuff, then delete the account. If only ghostwalker worked from Pe Builder I would not have to do all of this crap.

[Cemetric]

Have you tried with putting the command in the "runservices" instead of the "runservicesonce" key ?? ... They run assynchronously, maybe there's some issue there ?? I'm not sure there's an immediate solution for this. There is a tool in the resource kit that can add a service before logging in ... It's called "srvany" ...maybe that will help ??

.C.

[Cemetric]

I just thought of another service included in the Windows Resource kit ... "autoexnt" ... It allows you to run batch files before logon ... maybe that will help you achieve your goal ...

.C.

[Irongeek]

Thanks, I'll look into those.

[mohaughn]

Iron- This article says that runservicesonce is not a valid reg key for XP, Windows 2000, and NT4.

It only worked with 95 and 98.

Why not just use the \RunOnce key?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...istry_keys.asp

[Irongeek]

Thanks, I've read a few places where is said it only works in 9x, but other places say to check it for malware even in XP. RunOnce won't work for me because I need it to run before a logon happens, this way I can create and account to do my script stuff with. What I may end up doing is asking Sala to add command line options to his Password Renew tools.

[mohaughn]

You could write your program into a batch file and then convert that batch file into an exe using batch2exe.

Then register the .exe as a service. If you want it to run only once, make the last command of the batch file unregister the service. This way when you reboot, the service no longer exists and doesn't run.


You may also want to play with group policy objects, run at startup, and msconfig. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314488 although I think this is also a start at user login configuration.

[Tedob1]

i just checked CurrentControlSet\services and some of the crap i have installed runs services from program files unquoted. depending on what you have installed you could use batch2exe call it program and put it in c:\