20.0 Administering Desktop Automation Services

The ARS.exe is the center of Desktop Automation Services. You can configure this object with an independent set of instructions by using an XML document that is obtained through an entry in the Windows registry. The XML document can be obtained either locally on the workstation or through the directory services. The XML document is called the action file and the file is named actions.xml.

See an example file in Section 20.3, Example of an Action File

Each action is a set of configurable user-level operations such as mapping a drive, testing for establishing an authenticated connection to a directory, and running or shutting down an application. The flexibility of the code to test for conditions or have the action triggers such as hot keys provides tremendous flexibility to change the behavior of the workstation to fit your needs.

After the first action is invoked, the ARSControl.exe service starts and runs as a Windows service. The ARSControl.exe then parses the actions.xml file and stores the configuration in memory. All actions performed by ARS.exe and ARSControl.exe are recorded in a DASlog.txt log file at different configurable levels of details.

After you have configured the ARS.exe object, its actions are available individually or in combination from any scripting interface that is available on Windows, for example, VBScript, JavaScript, login scripts, and batch files.