Showing a *branded* message to the end user from a script

[OllyM]

Hi

 

We have a tool that allows us to run scripts in the background on a PC, running as the SYSTEM account. We use this to manage PCs on the fly when a user reports issues.

 

I've been asked to look in to a way to of generating a pop-up message to the end user from certain scripts so that we can tell them when a script has run, or what the next action needs to be.

 

I can do this with the "msg" command but this isn't branded. The idea being that it creates a level of trust between the user and the popup and helps them to believe that the message is from us.

 

I can create a branded HTML page easily enough and run this as an HTML application (.hta) but, as the script is running as the system account, this never shows to the user as it's in the wrong context.

 

Before I start looking at actually coding a solution (really really not my forté) does anyone know of a simple exe that will show a message to all of the end users on a PC along with a specified image or background? I'd be happy with something like "showthis.exe /allusers /background:this.png /message:"Thanks. The script has run. Please reboot when you can. Love IT Dept".

 

Either that or a clever way to easily run commands between user contexts so that my SYSTEM scripts can run .exe's in the user session?

 

Help

 

Ta

 

Olly

[ReadTheNetwork]

Hi Olly, a quick work around I thought of is to use psexec which would allow you to run a program remotely on a PC. So you could run your hta script.

Or if you want to look into this: pinvoke.net: wtssendmessage (wtsapi32) it might help with using the WTSSendMessage call with powershell.