Windows hangs during headless build

Question

We are trying to automate a build of one of our products which includes a step where it packages some things with WISE. At one point WISE pops up a window with a progress bar on it to show how it is doing. If one is connected to the machine with remote desktop the build works fine but if one is not connected the build stalls until you reconnect at which point the window opens and the build progresses. Does anybody know of a work around for this? Some way of tricking windows into believing that there is a desktop session connected?

Answer 1

Sorry for yet another guess - but I had a problem with a wise installer locking up. It was because WISE had installed a "font" and so broadcast a "system config changed" message. My DELL had a Dell utility running on it that had a message queue it wasn't reading from so the broadcast locked up the installer. WISE made a new version for me that did an async broadcast instead to fix the problem. It's possible that there's an app on your system that doesn't bother reading its msg queue when there is no desktop.

Finally the answer: check you have the latest patches for your WISE installer. In particular, look for patches that fix lock-ups related to the windowing system.