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How to: Automatically Minimize Windows Home Server 2011′s Launchpad On Start Up

By on October 25, 2011 in How to Guides, News, Windows Home Server, Windows Home Server 2011
The following How To Guide was submitted to WGS’ Tutorials section by forum user RedCat. Check out the Tutorial over at WGS Forums. If you find Windows Home Server 2011′s Launchpad pop-up annoying when you boot up your PC, this one’s for you!

I’ve created a VBScript to automatically Start and then Minimize Launchpad.

  1. First, turn off Launchpad’s automatic start up at boot :Launchpad -> Settings -> Start Up option -> Uncheck “Automatically run the Launchpad when I log on to Windows”
  2. Using Notepad, save the code below as Launchpad.vbs,  adding it to the Programs\Startup folder:
     
    Set objShell = CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
    objShell.CurrentDirectory = “C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\”
    objShell.Exec “C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Bin\Launchpad.exe”
    Do Until Success = True
    Wscript.Sleep 1000
    Success = objShell.AppActivate(“Windows Home Server 2011 Launchpad”)
    Loop
    Do Until Success = False
    objShell.SendKeys “%{F4}”
    Wscript.Sleep 1000
    Success = objShell.AppActivate(“Windows Home Server 2011 Launchpad”)
    Loop

The script has been tested with Windows XP and Windows 7 x64.

If you have a handy tip, trick or How To guide WGS readers would enjoy, then feel free to post it over at WGS Tutorials, and who knows, we may feature it here on the website!

More: WGS Tutorials


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About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
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  • Jeffmlafleur

    or you can ditch the OEM connector and replace it with Home Server Status.

    • guest123

      Or just ditch Home server status and replace it with Pc Monitor.

  • Simon Ferrari

    Just a word of caution for anyone copying and pasting the above code.  On my system the quotation marks were thrown up as invalid characters after pasting this into a file.  Changing them just be over-typing them with new quote marks solved this.

    • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

      Thanks for the heads-up, Simon…

    • doc_benway

      As a graphic designer and web developer, I routinely expect code like this to contain characters that won’t parse.

      Most often, as in this case, the left and right slanted “typographer’s quotes” are the culprits, since they are not the same character as plain old “straight” (= vertical, not slanted left and right) “double quotes” (which to a typographer are “vertical double prime marks,” and not quotes at all).

      The problem with cutting and pasting this into notepad is that even though notepad DISPLAYS the (proper) “straight quotes” (which have an ASCII value of decimal 34 or hex 22) it nevertheless PRESERVES IN THE CODE the embedded “extended” characters of &#8220 and &#8221 (left and right “slanted” double quotes), so the result won’t parse in the Visual Basic compiler.

      Although I use another editor which makes is pretty simple to search and replace such characters, for most people overtyping in notepad (as Simon recommends) is the best solution.

  • Al

    Can someone point out where the “startup” directory is in Windows 7 64bit?

    • Helder Meneses

      it’s: C:Users$username$AppDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStart MenuPrograms

  • Anonymous

    Terry, here’s an issue. I have Quicken installed and whenever Windows starts, it displays a dialog box for me to type in a Quicken password so it can on subsequent days download checking account information. In your vbs scrip you close the Launchpad by using the SendKeys command which sends an Alt-F4. If I don’t sign in to the Quicken dialog box before your scrip closes, it closes the Quicken dialog box. Why don’t you see if you can explicitly close the Launchpad app instead of hoping that Launchpad is the app with the focus when it runs. Hope this helps.

  • Qbjack

    For german (and maybe other european versions) of WHS 2011 Launchpad you need to change two lines:

    change:

    Success = objShell.AppActivate(“Windows Home Server 2011 Launchpad”)

    to

    Success = objShell.AppActivate(“Windows Home Server 2011-Launchpad”)

    Note the dash between “2011″ and “Launchpad”.

  • David

    I got a error:
    I translate it from german:
    Line:1
    Sign: 29
    Error: Invalis Sign
    Code Compliseerror in Microsoft VBSribt

    I copy&Paste the code in the how-to.

    • pineapple.guy

      I translate from Qbjack:

      Adden ein daschen zu dein kode in die fronte of die MeineSchweineHausserwerzwanzigelflaunchpadtitelnamenendewort, bitte.

      • David

        I add the “-” in the code.
        The error seemst to be in line 1.

        But I ont find a error………….

        • Kansas A

          I had the same error in line 1 and it was my quotes.  For some reason notepad changes the quotes so I just typed them in myself throughout the file and then saved and all was fine.

          • whs2011bb

            Kansas A is right just a quotes error just manually type the quotes and you are good to go.

            This script works Greate!

            THANKS!