How To - Implement Autologin

In WinAutomation, you can execute a job in the background only if you do not use any interactive actions to build it. Interactive actions include all actions under "Windows" category (e.g "Focus Window", "Close Window" etc) and "Mouse and Keyboard" category (e.g "Move Mouse", "Send Keys" etc). If you do use such actions, you will not be able to run the job in the background (e.g. when there is no user logged in the machine or when the computer is locked). Of course, if your job includes file and folder related actions, or sending emails, zip files, ftp, then you can totally use the machine to execute other tasks while your job is running in the background.

If you absolutely need to automate the login process, you will have to use the executable that is attached, as well as a job that runs the exe to login and calls the main job. You may test the scenario by following the steps bellow:

1) Save the attached file "AutoLogin.exe" into the root folder of your c: drive.

2) Import the attached job "AutoLoginJob.waj" into WinAutomation (File->Import Job)

3) Edit the job. This job contains a single "Run Application" action that runs "AutoLogin.exe". In the "Command Line Arguments" property of the action replace "UserName" with the appropriate username and "Password" with the appropriate password.

4) Attach a Schedule trigger to the job so that it will run automatically after a couple of minutes (in the Schedule Trigger dialog choose "Fire Trigger: On Specific Dates" and add the current date and the current time plus a couple of minutes).

5) Log off (or lock the workstation) and wait

After a few minutes the trigger will fire, the AutoLoginJob will run and the specified user will automatically log in. You can add a "Run Job" action to this job in order to call the main job that will perform the GUI automation after the login is completed. The last action of your main job could be a "Log Off" action to automatically log off.

Note that you will need to disable the "Welcome Screen" option in order for this solution to work. For more information on how you can do that please check the article here.

Keep in mind that the above solution will not work under Windows Vista, due to enhanced security of the new OS. Also, currently it does not work if you have WinAutomation installed locally and you are trying to autologin in a remote desktop machine.