Launching Windows Apps

[jonmchan]

Windows 11 has some apps that aren't standard .exe anymore. Had to do some googling, but to launch something like the LinkedIn app, you have to do something like:

start shell:appsFolder\7EE7776C.LinkedInforWindows_w1wdnht996qgy!App

When trying this in vdesk, it fails.

C:\Users\jonathan>vdesk run -o 4 shell:appsFolder\7EE7776C.LinkedInforWindows_w1wdnht996qgy!App
<3>VDesk.Commands.RunCommand[0] An error occurred trying to start process 'shell:appsFolder\7EE7776C.LinkedInforWindows_w1wdnht996qgy!App' with working directory 'C:\Users\jonathan'. The system cannot find the file specified.
        Windows version: 10.0.22631.3810

I have no idea what kind of reference this is, but can it be supported in vdesk?

[jonmchan]

Windows 10/11 is really missing a simple way to launch Windows Apps from command line... it should be something like windows-app-launcher (maybe i'll write one?)...

Anyways, to do this - you follow this methodology to figure out what the app exe is called:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_store/starting-windows-10-store-app-from-the-command/836354c5-b5af-4d6c-b414-80e40ed14675

Then you can use explorer to launch it.

vdesk run -o 4 -a "shell:appsFolder\7EE7776C.LinkedInforWindows_w1wdnht996qgy!App" explorer.exe

[jonmchan]

Launching script successfully written. It is available at https://github.com/jonmchan/windows-app-cmdline-launcher.

Now you can simply launch Microsoft Store apps with the following:

.\launch.bat Slack

Vdesk command would be something like:

vdesk run -o 2 -a Slack launch.bat

This causes vdesk to unfortunately hang. My guess would be that the launch batch script doesn't have a window, but launches a subprocess. vdesk is monitoring for the launched process to spawn a window and move it to the right virtual desktop. Since no window is directly spawned, it hangs indefinitely. Any ideas how to workaround?

[LittleVaaty]

Hi,
i will investigate but my guest is windows app don't work like regular exe and the process is managed differently.
I will see what can i do about it.