Question : Windows Service that is set to Interact With Desktop is not

I have an local system account service that is installed and set to interact with the desktop. At pre-scheduled times throughout the day it runs certain scripts using Microsoft Internet Controls COM object (SHDocVW) so the launched script can be monitored until it is completed.

During set up on a new machine we often set the application to run these scripts visibly so we know it is working. As long as Interact with desktop is set this is just a config change in the app settings that modifies the line shown below. This has been working fine until lately when we went to put it on a Windows 2003 Server and set the interaction up however it tries to run the script at the right time but does not show it visibly.

Debugging has revealed the visible value is definitly getting set and adding in an extra message box confirms it seems to be an issue with the OS not showing any interaction as the logs reveal it was waiting for a user to click past the message box yet no dialog was on screen. When the scripts run you can see the process in Task Manager yet it is not visible.

What could be causing it not to interact with the desktop like this? Is there any security setting or policy that perhaps might be set that is overriding or surpressing the interact with desktop setting for this service?

Code Snippet:

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Dim inet as new SHDocVw.InternetExplorer .. .. if runVisible then inet.Visible = True End If .. ..

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Answer : Windows Service that is set to Interact With Desktop is not

Are you testing this through an RDP connection? If so, you need the /console switch when you start mstsc to connect to the server, because the console GUI can only be seen in a console session, not in a 'normal' RDP session.