Question about TaskManager in WCE7

Technical Support
, ,
1

Hi,

I have a quick question about WCE7. Is there any way to disable Task Manager from being opened? Maybe a Registry parameter? I’m thinking in a way to prevent my application from being killed by the user using Task Manager.

Thanks.

2

We do disable the explorer menues

MenuBarEn(SW_HIDE, false); // Hide menubar

// Methode for Show and hide the menubar
private void MenuBarEn(int ShowHide, bool WindowEn)
{
    int h = FindWindow("HHTaskBar", "");
    ShowWindow(h, ShowHide);
    EnableWindow(h, WindowEn);  
}
3

Dear @rafael.assakawa

The Task manager is only one of many tools which can be used to kill your application (you could easily write your own tool who does that). Therefore you need an option to prevent your customers from starting any application except your own one.

The solution that @TJO described above helps, as it hides the start menu. There are still two backdoors open:

  1. The user still has the option of going through the “My Device” icon on the desktop.
    To avoid this, you can disable the explorer.exe (which handles the whole visible desktop including taskbar), as described in our developer page article.
    You can start explorer.exe from your application if required.
  2. If the user inserts a USB drive or SD card with a folder called AutoRun, containing the Task Manager (or any other application), this application will be started.
    Please refer to the developer page to learn how to disable or configure the the AutoRun feature.

Regards, Andy

4

Hi Andy, TJO.

Thanks for your answers. I’ve been thinking about all open doors so the user is able to kill the application. Hiding the start menu I already did. My Windows CE has VNC access. Because of this software, user can call Task Manager by pressing a single button in Ultra VNC Client, for instance. That’s why I have asked if you know how to disable it. What I didnt know is that once start menu is disabled Task manager cannot be called by UltraVNC anymore (I have tested right now). Thanks.

About AutoRun, I totally forgot. I will disable AutoRun for USB HD. Despite of all that, my application runs imedially after boot and opens a full screen mode. To exit the application, user has to input a random counter-password. But Task manager still able to close the application.

I know you probabily you will say if I need a more secure enviroment, I should disable VNC access. I will not provide VNC password to the users. Only support team will have this. But in case user finds out the password, still my desire is to protect, at maximum, the application from being closed.

Thanks.

5

Hi Andy, TJO.

Thanks for your answers. I’ve been thinking about all open doors so the user is able to kill the application. Hiding the start menu I already did. My Windows CE has VNC access. Because of this software, user can call Task Manager by pressing a single button in Ultra VNC Client, for instance. That’s why I have asked if you know how to disable it. What I didnt know is that once start menu is disabled Task manager cannot be called by UltraVNC anymore (I have tested right now). Thanks.

About AutoRun, I totally forgot. I will disable AutoRun for USB HD. Despite of all that, my application runs imedially after boot and opens a full screen mode. To exit the application, user has to input a random counter-password. But Task manager still able to close the application.

I know you probabily you will say if I need a more secure enviroment, I should disable VNC access. I will not provide VNC password to the users. Only support team will have this. But in case user finds out the password, still my desire is to protect, at maximum, the application from being closed.

Thanks.

6

You could disable explorer in the registry or build your custom os image without explorer/taskmanager.