CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-chromekiosk-mode
Docu
Docu

Reputation: 147

Open google chrome (all users installation) in kiosk mode from terminal

I execute this in order to open Google chrome in kiosk mode:

"C:\Users\Javier\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir=$(mktemp -d) --kiosk "url"

but, what I need to modify if google chrome is installed in Program Files(x86)? If I execute:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe --user-data-dir=$(mktemp -d) --kiosk "url"

I get an error in --user-data-dir=$(mktemp -d) sentence.

Thanks in advance. Javier

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1549

Answers (2)

Karthikeyan
Karthikeyan

Reputation: 145

I was using the command chrome.exe --user-data-dir=$(mktemp -d) --kiosk http://someUrl/ and it was working well for over a week until I started testing my program with a limited privilege user today. I noticed that chrome process itself did not start after calling process.start() method. There were no entries in event logs to see what went wrong. After looking at your solution, I changed my program to generate a temp folder using C# command pass it as an argument and it started working. Thanks for the help. This is the simplified version of the code I use. 

DirectoryInfo tempDirectory = Directory.CreateDirectory(Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), "Chrome" + DateTime.Now.ToString("ddMMHHmmss")));

Process process = new Process();
process.StartInfo.FileName = GetBrowserPathFromRegistry();
process.StartInfo.Arguments = String.Format("--user-data-dir={0} --kiosk {1}", tempDirectory.FullName, this.uri);
process.Start();

Upvotes: 1

Brian Chandler
Brian Chandler

Reputation: 180

I think there may be no elegant solution at this point. "mktemp -d" is a linux/unix command and I can't find it, or an equivalent, on windows. It may have worked at one time (I stumbled on mktemp on a microsoft development page), but on 8.1 it didn't. The error I was getting said it had to do with permissions, but that wasn't the case.

If someone could get commands in Cygwin working at the windows command prompt then maybe the above would work. Another option may be to create something for PowerShell that does the same and plug that in there.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir=c:\somedir --kiosk "some.url.here" does work though. It works from a shortcut, so it should also work from the command line, but you do lose the random temp directory.

For my case, I just wanted some websites/web-apps to default full screen (F11) from a shortcut and I'd just Alt-F4 to close, and Alt-Tab between them and the desktop. As it is, I'm thinking I'll have to make a separate data-dir for each one I want to do.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions