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I'm a software developer who has been tasked with finding a systems admin solution, so I am out of my depth here.

We have a little 100k application which sits on a share drive and is launched by a log on start-up script (not even really sure how that works). This works well for customers who have a policy that requires them to log off at the end of the day and log in at the start of the day. But we have some potential customers who have no such policy and so are exploring alternative ways to launch the application "at the start of the day".

The major requirement is that whatever mechanism is used to execute the script is completely controllable by a systems admin. We are willing to entertain any number of reasonable hooks for launching the script other than the log in action. For example, one idea was to launch the script when a user fires up an instance of their internet browser. It's OK for the hook to fire multiple times in a day, as the application keeps track of whether it's time to show itself to the user or not.

Any ideas or guidance appreciated, thanks!

Edit

As I mentioned to Nixphoe in a comment, another major requirement is that the appearance of the application to the user happen in a way which is automatic but not unexpected.

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Might be the simplest way to have Task Scheduler do this. You can set your program to run at whatever interval you would want (every 30 minutes, every two hours) and from any time frame.

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Thanks Nixphoe, that's a nice idea, but (and I neglected to mention in my question) there was concern about a solution which could run at any time (e.g. in the middle of a user delivering a presentation). So a solution which fires based on a user initiated event would be best so that they can anticipate it. – user78313 Apr 13 '11 at 18:35
I don't understand the full scope of what you're asking then. Does this need to be user initiated? Like they would want it to run during a presentation? or they would not want it to run during that time? If you only need it to run at the start of the day like you had mentioned in your first post. You could have it only run at lets say 7:30 in the morning every day with the Task Scheduler. – Nixphoe Apr 13 '11 at 19:00
I'm sorry I wasn't clear, what we need is for the script to run automatically but not unexpectedly. e.g., running the script on log on events works great, since it runs automatically, but the user expects it. That's why I was thinking that running the script when the user opens their internet browser or email client for example would have a similar effect, and good choices since everyone opens those apps daily -- except I don't know how to do that or even if it's possible in a way which is fully controllable remotely by the admin. – user78313 Apr 13 '11 at 19:12
Hmm, your comment is interesting though, it might be doable to have the scheduler run in the early early morning (before anyone comes into the office, for example 2am), so that the app will be running when first look at the computer in the morning. Definitely something to consider, though the app does have a session timeout feature, which could be removed but I'm not sure how that will go over. – user78313 Apr 13 '11 at 19:17
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If you have it run at 7:30 am every morning using the Task Scheduler and let all your users know that it will be running at that time, it will definitly not be unexpected :) – Nixphoe Apr 13 '11 at 19:17
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