How can I run a program on a windows minion desktop (visible)

[John Simmons]

I want to run a program on a windows 7 salt-minion desktop.  Something simple, like just opening notepad, with an argument of a specific txt file to open.

This question was addressed [here](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/salt-users/fl1B4bCG-Nk), and the solution appeared to be to go into services.msc and in the properties for salt-minion on the windows 7 minion, select "Allow interaction with the desktop".  That works in a way, but it doesn't actually run the program on the desktop.  For example, if I want to run something simple like notepad, and I send the command

salt 'myWindowsMinion' cmd.run 'start notepad' 

Then on my minion, I get a popup on my desktop that says "Interactive Service Detection", and I have to click to allow it to show, which then takes me to a separate environment, to show the notepad screen.

I imagine this is actually expected behavior for the way I'm running it, but is there any way to actually run something on the master, that opens notepad on a windows 7 minion desktop?

I am not worried about any security concerns.  I'm pretty new to Saltstack, so I apologize if the answer is fairly obvious.

Thanks

[John Simmons]

Also, I forgot to mention, when I execute the salt 'myWindowsMinion' cmd.run 'start notepad', the master never returns, even after I've closed the Interactive Service Detection warning, and notepad.  It just sits there, and I have to kill the job manually.

[John Simmons]

I have also tried using a script on the minion, for example, if I use a state, that looks like this

startnotepad:

  cmd.run:

    - name: C:\Users\myuser\Desktop\startnotepad.bat

    - runas: myuser

    - password: mypassword

with the startnotepad.bat looking like this

@echo off

start "notepad" "C:\Users\myuser\Desktop\mytestfile.txt"

exit

Then I get a success, as if it ran ok:

myminion:

----------

          ID: startnotepad

    Function: cmd.run

        Name: C:\Users\myuser\Desktop\startnotepad.bat

      Result: True

     Comment: Command "C:\Users\myuser\Desktop\startnotepad.bat" run

     Started: 08:27:22.068000

     Duration: 226.0 ms

     Changes:   

              ----------

              pid:

                  3004

              retcode:

                  0

              stderr:

              stdout:

Summary for myminion

------------

Succeeded: 1 (changed=1)

Failed:    0

------------

Total states run:     1

[Christopher Baklid]

If you enable the "session-id" tab in the view in taskmanager, you'll notice that the process is running under session-id 0, which is a non-interactive session.

The only way I really see this working is by downloading PsExec from microsoft and run it on the minion like so:


salt win7 cmd.run "C:\psexec.exe -accepteula -d -i 1 notepad"



-acceptuela accepts the uela

-d          detaches the process from salt

-i 1        specifies what session-id the window should appear in (in this case the first user that logs in has id 1)

Unfortunately it starts as the back most window, so if any other windows are open, it start behind those

I hope that helps

[John Simmons]

Thanks! I think that solution will work for me.

[M_Smith]

I got this to work for a game client by using powershell to generate a scheduled task that then could be executed remotely. If you want I can dig up the code for it and send it over, but it sounds like the other solution will work as well to me.