Windows 8 Application Launcher (Industry 8.1)

Article
12/14/2016

7/8/2014

Learn how to enable, disable, and configure the Windows 8 Application Launcher on your Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry (Industry 8.1) device.

You can use Windows 8 Application Launcher to start a Windows Store app immediately after a user signs in to a Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry (Industry 8.1) device and to restart the app when the app exits. You can configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to launch different apps for different users.

If the Windows Store app is written specifically to work with Windows 8 Application Launcher, you can configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to perform a specified action based on an exit value returned by the app. For example, you could configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to shut down or restart the device when the app exits.

Turn Windows 8 Application Launcher on or off

By default, Windows 8 Application Launcher is not turned on. You can turn Windows 8 Application Launcher on or off for your Industry 8.1 device by using the following steps:

To turn Windows 8 Application Launcher on or off by using Control Panel

In Control Panel, click Programs and Features.
In the Programs and Features window, click Turn Windows features on or off.
In the Windows Features window, expand the Embedded Features node, and check or clear the checkbox for Windows 8 Application Launcher.

To turn Windows 8 Application Launcher on or off by using DISM

Open a command prompt with administrator rights.
At the command prompt, type the following command to turn on Windows 8 Application Launcher:
```
Dism /online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:ISKU-ApplicationLauncher
```
-or-

Type the following command to turn off Windows 8 Application Launcher:
```
Dism /online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:ISKU-ApplicationLauncher
```

After you turn on Windows 8 Application Launcher, you must then enable Windows 8 Application Launcher.

Turning on Windows 8 Application Launcher does not require a device restart.

Enable or disable Windows 8 Application Launcher

By default, Windows 8 Application Launcher is not enabled. You can enable or disable Windows 8 Application Launcher by setting the Enabled property in Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) class WEMSAL_Setting to true. If you enable or disable Windows 8 Application Launcher, the changes do not affect any sessions that are currently signed in; you must sign out and sign back in.

Warning

Microsoft does not support having both Windows 8 Application Launcher and Shell Launcher enabled at the same time.

Launch a Windows Store app

Before you can configure Windows 8 Application Launcher, you must know the Application User Model ID (AUMID) of the Windows Store app that you want Windows 8 Application Launcher to launch.

The AUMID format is the package family name followed by an exclamation point and the application ID. For more information about how to identify the AUMID, see Guidelines for developing Windows Store apps for Windows Embedded.

Important

The app must be installed on the device for the current user for Windows 8 Application Launcher to launch the app. If Windows 8 Application Launcher can’t find the app, or launch the app for any reason, Windows 8 Application Launcher waits a very short period of time (100 milliseconds) and tries to re-launch the app. If Windows 8 Application Launcher cannot launch the app after the ten attempts, Windows 8 Application Launcher signs out the current user.
You can modify this behavior by using the WEMSAL_Setting WMI class to either disable Windows 8 Application Launcher, or to change the action that Windows 8 Application Launcher takes when it cannot launch the app.

Perform an action when the app exits

When the launched app exits, Windows 8 Application Launcher can perform one of five app exit actions, based on the following action values:

Value	Action
0	Restart the app.
1	Restart the system.
2	Shut down the system.
3	Close Windows 8 Application Launcher.
4	Sign out.

When the launched app exits, Windows 8 Application Launcher can either restart the app or, if the app is designed specifically to work with Windows 8 Application Launcher, perform another action.

Default exit action

You can change the default exit action for Windows 8 Application Launcher by using the WEMSAL_Setting WMI class. If you do not change the initial value, the default action is set to 0 (zero), which indicates that Windows 8 Application Launcher restarts the app when the app exits.

Standard Windows Store apps

Windows Store apps that are not specifically designed to work with Windows 8 Application Launcher, including apps downloaded through the public Windows Store, do not return an exit code when the app exits. In these cases, Windows 8 Application Launcher performs the default exit action when it detects that the app has stopped running.

Specialized Windows Store apps

If you create a Windows Store app designed to work with Windows 8 Application Launcher, you can have the app write a CustomExitCode key before it exits. This integer key is written to the app data local settings. If the app exits and Windows 8 Application Launcher detects a CustomExitCode key, Windows 8 Application Launcher can take a specific action based on the value of the CustomExitCode key.

For any given CustomExitCode value returned by the app, you configure the action that Windows 8 Application Launcher takes by mapping that custom exit code to one of the app exit actions.

For example, your specialized Windows Store app might return CustomExitCode values of 0, 1, or 255 depending on how the app exits. You can configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to restart the system (1) when the app returns a value of 0, restart the app (0) when the app returns a value of 1, and shut down the system (2) when the app returns a value of 255. Your custom return code action mapping would look like this:

Exit code	Action
0	1 (restart the system)
1	0 (restart the app)
255	2 (shut down the system)

If Windows 8 Application Launcher can’t find a CustomExitCode, or can’t find a mapping for the CustomExitCode value, Windows 8 Application Launcher performs the default exit action.

Prevent the Start screen from displaying

You can configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to prevent the Start screen from displaying for an account that has Windows 8 Application Launcher enabled. You can do this by setting the KioskMode property of WEMSAL_Setting to true. A blank screen is displayed any time that the Start screen would be displayed. The color of the blank screen matches the color that is selected for the Start screen in PC Settings.

If you set KioskMode to true, then you cannot specify any exit action to close Windows 8 Application Launcher when the app exits. All exit actions must be either to restart the app, restart the device, shutdown the device, or sign out from the current account.

Configure Windows 8 Application Launcher for different user accounts

You can configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to launch different Windows Store app for specific users or groups. For example, you might configure a device to launch one Windows Store app for customer accounts, but launch a different Windows Store app for employee accounts.

For each user or group account, you can configure the following: the Windows Store app to launch, the exit code mapping for specialized Windows Store app s, and the default exit action.

Windows 8 Application Launcher follows the following order to determine the configuration to use.

Current user account configuration. Windows 8 Application Launcher uses the configuration for the current user account, if one exists. It does not matter if the current user account is a member of the administrator group or not.
Administrator account. If no specific user configuration exists and the current user account is an administrator account, Windows 8 Application Launcher exits without launching any app. If you want to launch an app for an administrator account, you must add a configuration for the specific user account that is a member of the administrator group.
Group account configuration. If a configuration exists for a group that the current user account is a member of, Windows 8 Application Launcher uses the first matching configuration that it finds. The group account must not be a member of the administrator group, or else Windows 8 Application Launcher exits without launching any app.

Tip

The group account configuration order is not defined, so we recommend that you avoid assigning a user to multiple groups with different Windows 8 Application Launcher configurations.
Global configuration. If Windows 8 Application Launcher cannot find any configurations defined for the user, Windows 8 Application Launcher uses the global configuration.

Remarks

Windows 8 Application Launcher runs on top of the Windows 8.1 shell, so you may need to lock down any Windows 8.1 shell functionality that is not appropriate for your customized device.

If a Windows Store app closes itself, Windows treats it as a crash. If the Windows Store app crashes, Industry 8.1 may display a Watson error message on the screen. You can configure Watson to hide the UI. For more information, see WER Settings on MSDN.