NetLaunch

NetLaunch is a very small, easy-to-use and simplesystem tray application that can significantly enhance the Windows Dial-Up Networking (DUN) services.

The goal in writing this application was to develop a program that could do the following: ￭ Monitor Dial-Up Networking connections and disconnections ￭ Launch and close applications when a connect or disconnect occurs ￭ Provide easy yet powerful scheduling, to make and break connections ￭ Provide a method to bypass the "Connect To" dialog box, redial a disconnected session, and enhance the DUN error dialogs.

NetLaunch is unique in a great many ways. First, it is the smallest of any of the utils that perform the same comparitive functions.

NetLaunch also gives you a much easier and simplified interface, while allowing you maximum power. There are no limitations to the number of Dial-Up connections you may configure, no limits to the number of applications NetLaunch can run/close, and no limitations to the number of schedules you may configure for each DUN connection.

No other utility offers the kind of application closing features that NetLaunch offers. E-Mail programs can be closed "nicely" so you don't lose e-mail if disconnected, and other background programs like FTP servers or Finger servers can be closed more forcefully to get around annoying "Are you sure?" prompts.

Here are some key features of "NetLaunch":

￭ Can launch and/or close applications when it detects a connect or disconnect. Can also launch programs just prior to each event. ￭ Can close programs on a connection event, and offers several different close methods for programs. This allows you to close an e-mail program nicely (to avoid losing any e-mail you were typing should your connection be broken), or force-close a program like ICQ, which normally asks you "are you sure?" first. ￭ Can define programs that disconnect you when they close, so it could automatically disconnect from your ISP when you close Netscape for example. ￭ Each program can be configured differently for each Dial-Up Networking connection. This way you can have programs that launch when you connect to one ISP, but not the other! ￭ Presses the "Connect" and "Redial" buttons (configurable per DUN connection) ￭ Override username/password per DUN connection ￭ Hide/Minimize the "Connected to xxx" dialog after a successful connection Adds "Retry" and "Cancel" buttons to Dial-Up Networking error messages (like NT does), and will automatically retry after an elapsed amount of time with no activity (user-configurable of course) ￭ Minimum baud-rate checking. Netlaunch will drop the connection and redial if the minimum speed is not met. ￭ Low-traffic disconnect per DUN connection. This feature works 100% better than Microsoft's lame "Idle disconnect" ￭ Powerful connection scheduling for automatically connecting and disconnecting from your DUN connections. ￭ Manages an unlimited number of DUN connections, launch applications and schedules for each DUN. ￭ Shortcuts to all your internet apps from the context-menu ￭ You may choose which programs show up in the context menu, and which connections are displayed in the menu. Programs can be conditionally added to the context menu based on being connected/not connected. Configurable per DUN connection. ￭ Online context-sensitive help ￭ Quick access to your Dial-Up Networking connections, so you can establish or break a connection ￭ Connection/disconnection scheduling. You may specify an unlimited number of schedules and timed connection/disconnections. ￭ Quick menu hotkey for bringing up the NetLaunch menu ￭ Command-line access to the menu functions, so you can make/break connections and launch programs using command-line arguments! ￭ Quick access to all the programs in your Launch List so you can add programs to the Launch List that never launch--just to have a shortcut from the NetLaunch menu! ￭ Can add itself to your list of startup programs, so NetLaunch is always running when you're in Windows. ￭ Fully extensible using the NetLaunch API available free of charge to anyone who wants to extend NetLaunch's capabilities. Contact me or check out my website to obtain the NLX (NetLaunch eXtension) developer kit. ￭ SMALL SMALL SMALL! Written in straight C, and only uses a few DLL's that are already loaded by Windows.