Delaying service start until after hardware installation

[Guest]

Hi,
I am experiencing a slight problem, and would appreciate any help/guidance
that can be given.

As a quick background:
The XPe image runs from flash card, on a 300MHz Geode processor. The device
also has two NICs.
I have created a standard image that has configured the network settings of
the two NICs (set to DHCP)
We have a service that runs on XPe It reads a configuration file when it
starts, and configures the NICs as per the configuration file (if they are
not already correctly configured). This configuration may include bridging
the two NICs.
This all works correctly, and you can change the configuration to your
heart's content, restart the service and the NICs will be configured
appropriatly.
The problem arrises (sometimes) when you put the flash card into a device
that has slightly different NICs (nominally the same, but they require
hardware installation). It appears that our service attempts to configure the
NICs while they are still being installed by the system. This produces all
sorts of problems with the network setup. This can happen at either first
boot or subsequent boot (We have been in the habit of booting up the image in
the office to check that a flash card is correctly formatted before we send
the it to site.).

The question is this:
does anyone know of a way of checking whether there is a hardware
installation in progress?
Alternately, do they know of a way of delaying a service start until after
any plug and play installations have been completed.

Any other suggestions/comments would be welcome.

Cheers,
John

 

[Perro Flaco]

I hope CMP_WaitNoPendingInstallEvents can help you:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms789525.aspx

 

[Guest]

Hi Perro,
We have already tried this. Unfortunately it is not guaranteed to work, and
so gives unpredictable results.

John

 

[Guest]

Hi,
In order to be a bit more helpful, this function does not work if the image
is unsealing itself, as it only waits if there are known plug and play
installations pending. If the image is currently unsealing, thne it could
have started up our service before the system as got as far as even checking
whether there are new devices. We have made our service dependant on the
spooler service so that it is amongst the last to start up.

Cheers,
John