John Hendry

John Hendry

  • NA
  • 1
  • 1.1k

Frequent Local updates of Badges in windows 8.1

Jan 31 2015 7:51 AM
<updated>

I have a windows store application that needs to show immediately new information on Tiles and Lockscreen Badges.


Before some one thinks this is silly - just think why windows displays the network status on the lock screens (all screens actually). Now imagine a secure environment that needs to show just as important information in the same place and the same real-time way (as a comparison - if your couldn't login without a network and your couldn't see the network was up near real-time you would end up with *very* frustrated users - that is the style of information I need to show)

The machine cannot access the internet in any way (local intranet only). 

The data the application needs to parse is only available via a windows service on the same machine and new information must then be displayed on the applications Live Tile and a Lockscreen Badge immediately.

The Metro application will not be running full-screen all the time so a Background process of the application will need to be triggered to update the Tiles etc.
Another issue is the information needs to be displayed on a badge prior to a login - For example the badge on the lockscreen will need to be updated after a system boot and before any user has accessed the system.

I have spent days trying to achieve this BUT all the windows methods have issues:

1) Time triggers for background tasks cannot be anymore frequent then every 15 minutes - I need near realtime updates

2) Push notifications require the external WNS service (machine cannot see the internet or any cloud service)

3) ControlChannelTriggers do not work on the same machine

4) You are not allowed to use socket connections on loopback addresses (must access different machine)

For the "not logged in" requirement  I could create a user that is locked to one app and has a shared or no password that can just display the required info - This has security issues all over it including that no-one has tested that the locking to one app works (for instance <ctrl-x> still works and may be an indication of an attack vector especially if you have multiple monitors connected).


Even if this becomes acceptable the issue of not being able to do frequent tile updates locally and in background is a show-stopper.

Can anyone provide me with a direction on how to do this inter-process communications with a windows store app


John