Enable On-Screen Keyboard for use in XPe

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Guest

Hi all,
I have been working on creating an XP embedded image for a pure Tablet PC.
The idea is to have a pen operated thin client without an attaced keyboard.
I understand that in order for the pen the function correctly it is necessary
to have the Windows XP Tablet PC SDK installed on the thin client. I have
been successful with getting the integrated digitizer, which is Wacom device,
too work; however, it does take a minute or two to respond when the logon
window appears.

My question is, how would one launch the MS On-Screen Keyboard (OSK) in
order to provide the user a method to enter his/her password during logon as
well as to be available while logged on?

I have tried loading the MS OSK as a service using srvany.exe which does
load the keyboard for login. However the keyboard dissappears once the user
is logged in. To remedy this, I used the Utility Manager to launch the OSK
again once logged in, but it the OSK never reappears because it currently
running as a service. So I used a startup script to stop the service I
created, and the OSK successfully restarts when logged in.

Now, the problem I am encountering is that after resuming form a password
protected screen saver, I do not have access to the OSK to enter the password.

Secondly, if the user logs off, the OSK which was running as a user mode
application is once again not available to re-login. So it is necessary to
restart the thin client to logg back in.

Has anyone tried to this or does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

~VN
 
VN,

That's been a while since I dealt with OSK.
But I think that time I worked around the problem with a service (started with srvany but ended up with own service to avoid legal
issues from using the RK tool).

Did you try setting the service state to allow it to interact with desktop?
You can change the service state with Services MMC UI or using sc.exe command line utility during FBA.
 
Thanks for the reply KM.

However, the service state is set to interact with the desktop. I think
because OSK is a user mode application it behaves strangely as a service. On
boot up the OSK is available, but despite being allowed to interact with the
desktop, OSk seems to be hidden after login. Another peculiar behavior is
that if the user logs off, the OSK is not available to log back in so it's
necessary to use a physical keyboard to enter the password. Once logged back
in, the OSK appears again.

I think I may have to use a different soft keyboard for login and the MS OSK
while logged in.

Any thoughts would be welcomed.

~VN
 
VN,

I checked my notes here and it seems that I haven't had any problems with the "srvany" fix for the OSK the time I was working on it.
Since OSK gets launched by the service it runs in the same account context as the service itself. In other words, if user logs off
the OSK is still there since it has been launched by a system account service.

How do you set up srvany? What you set as the Parameter key of the service?

Another possible solution for you.. Modify MS GINA to have the OSK launched from there every time you receive user logoff event or
user sees the Winlogon screen.
Search this NG archive for more info about MS GINA solutions. Sample MS Gina code you should be able to find on MSDN and
www.xpefiles.com.
 
Thanks again KM,

Under my "OSK" service registry key, I have the Parameters sub-key. This
contains the string value "Application" set to "c:\windows\system32\osk.exe",
and I have no other parameters. Would I need any further parameters other
than setting the "OSK" service to interact with desktop?

However, the MS Gina solution sounds very promising so I will pursue that
and post my findings.

Regards,
~VN
 
VN said:
I have been working on creating an XP embedded image for a pure Tablet PC.
The idea is to have a pen operated thin client without an attaced keyboard.
I understand that in order for the pen the function correctly it is necessary
to have the Windows XP Tablet PC SDK installed on the thin client.
Click to expand...

For Table PC function unfortunatly it does no good to install the SDK.
You need to habe the TabletPC Inst files from the TabletPC setup...

OSK.exe is much simpler than the PIP from TabletPC but maybe the only
alternative with XPe...

Regards,
Wolfgang
 
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