Can Vox still run when Windows desktop is locked?

[SuperKronz]

Hi everyone,

I am having heaps of fun with Vox, Vera, Amulet and as many Z-wave devices I can make up reasons to buy.  I've hit something stupid that I can seem to work around - Vox stops working when I lock my windows workstation.  When I log back in, the GUI is active, but I have to restart it to get it working again.  Played around with difference ways to run Vox as a service but I can't get it to go.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for your time.

[jitterjames]

Hey SK.

VC is not designed to work as a service.  I don't know what you mean by

Played around with difference ways to run Vox as a service.

Maybe you can elaborate on that.  Perhaps you messed something up in the process of fiddling.

We tested locking two different computers and when returning from the lock state, VC continues to work normally.  Both systems tested were running Win7x64 and using built in analog mics (laptops).

but I have to restart it to get it working again

Restart what?  If you mean closing and restarting VC completely, is it possible that you only need to set the mode to "off" and then back to "on"?  If that is the case, it is possible that your system is losing the connection to a USB microphone or something similar, during the lock/unlock process.

[SuperKronz]

I am using Win7 64 with an amulet remote.  When the workstation is locked, Vox does not accept commands.  Should it? 

When I log back in I had to restart Vox to get it functioning again, I did not try setting it to Off then On.  I will check it out when I get home tonight.  My goal is to have everything running on one windows box (vox, event ghost,  amulet and usb-uirt dongles) but be able to lock the workstation so my kid doesn’t wreck anything when he starts banging on the keyboard or chewing on the mouse.

Perhaps I can achieve the same functionality with a screensaver and password...

For the service stuff, there are a few programs that claim to be able to run any GUI app as a service so that you don't have to be logged for things to run and remain active - I wasn't too happy with the result so I thought I would leave that alone for now.

Side note:  Vera, Z-wave dimmers, amulet remote and Vox are crazy fun... I can't stop walking around the house turning things on, off, and running scenes.  Next up: IR commands to trick out the multi-media side of things.  Gonna try using Vox to send the IR through a usb uirt and see if I can work without event ghost.

I appreciate the development of this awesome product and all the helpful info in these forums.

[jitterjames]

I tested with the Amulet on my win7x64 htpc and I have no such problems there either, but I am only locking it for a minute, and I did not try bashing the mouse and keyboard around.

No VC does not seem to work when the PC is locked.  I think that all normal program execution is suspended (on purpose) when windows is locked.  I probably could get around this by turning VC into a service but i have no intention of doing this.

Try the screensaver idea but also let me know if turning it off then on works.

USBUIRT works great with VC, but if you want to use it with both, I'm not sure if there will be a conflict between EG and VC both accessing it at the same time.

Yeah voice controlling lights is fun and I especially like voice commands for complex macros like "watch TV" or "listen to music", or "I'm going to bed" which does about 10 things for me.  Nice thing with Vera scenes is that you can do them in timed stages so when I go to bed, it starts a Vera scene and then shuts down the TV, stereo, and computer.  The Vera scene shuts the lights off slowly, over a period of about 10 minutes, giving me time to brush my teeth and get into bed without being in the dark.