Mining with invisible/hidden console on windows?

[Viro]

I'm trying to find a way to run a miner without a gui on windows without it being visible (other than in the task manager). Anybody got any ideas on how to do this?

So far, I've tried hstart (http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/hstart.html), which lets me run batch files without the command prompt, and also I've tried a vbs script. With both methods, the poclbm.exe process seems to start fine, and I see it in my task manager, however, when checking my worker stats in my pools, I see that they're not working at all. However, when removing the /noconsole flag from hstart but otherwise running it the exact same way, I get poclbm.exe with the console and it shows my worker as active in my pool.

So do you guys have any experience in getting this to work? Know what I might be doing wrong?

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[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Use zhider, works great!

[SmokeTooMuch]

afaik poclbm and poclbm-gui are both open source.
I guess you could manipulate it so that the poclbm-gui will not use a tray symbol or something like that.

If you found a way pls let us know.

[SchizophrenicX]

I've asked the same question a few days ago. No real answer, after searching the forum I arrived pretty much at the same few things you've tried to no avail. I've been busy building my 1st mining rig though.

However, I also tried window's task scheduler with and without condition on both XP and Win7 however I also faced the same problem. When it's ran like this, poclbm runs find but doesn't mine. I also tried it with guiminer which have 'auto-start' but still it doesn't mine.

I hope someone would be able to shed some light on this.

[TurdHurdur]

I like hidec.exe/RunHiddenConsole.exe which you can get from http://redmine.lighttpd.net/attachments/660/RunHiddenConsole.zip, where I originally found the link here: http://wiki.nginx.org/PHPFastCGIOnWindows. It's only 2KB and I use it for a scheduled task that rysncs a file on a remote server. Security software may complain about it, seeing it can be used for malicious purposes.

If you still want output, you could make a shortcut like:

Target: C:\path\to\hidec.exe cmd /C "miner.exe --arguments values > output.txt"
Start in: C:\path\to\miner

You'll have to kill them from Task Manager, which isn't a big deal with miners.

[timmmay]

Funny, I was just about to start a new thread on this topic then this one popped up to the top of the list!

I've tried a couple of options too without any success.

I've noticed that when you attempt to run poclbm OR phoenix without access to the GUI, it cannot find the platform ID.  Here's the error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "poclbm.py", line 27, in <module>
pyopencl.LogicError: clGetPlatformIDs failed: invalid/unknown error code


I know nothing about coding so wouldn't know where to start trying to get around that.

Anyway I am also still searching for a solution so here's hoping we can work it out

[PcChip]

And I think we all know exactly why you want it being ran hidden....


tsk, tsk.

[WilliamJohnson]

Well with a VBScript, it's quite simple :


Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "cmd /c cd C:\Users\Stormtrooper42\phoenix-1.48 & phoenix.exe -u http://account:password@btcguild.com:8332 VECTORS BFI_INT AGGRESSION=7 DEVICE=0", 0


The important part here is passing 0 as the second parameter of WshShell.Run
It tells cmd.exe to hide its window.
You will have to kill phoenix.exe (or whatever miner you're using) from the task manager.

Of course, replace "C:\Users\Stormtrooper42\phoenix-1.48" with the folder of your miner's exe,
and "phoenix.exe ..." with the command you normally use to run your miner.

Also, why do you want to hide it?

[mmortal03]

The trick with all this is that you still need a way to unhide it mid-process to check that it is in fact connected and working. I can picture one of these running all day at 0 Mhashes/s and people not knowing the difference because it's hidden.

[Kiv]

If you have a legitimate use case for this, I would consider an option in my GUI to have no tray icon when minimized. But it seems more likely that you're just trying to be unethical with this. Prove me wrong and we'll talk

[Isepick]

Use this program:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8403.0

Set it to come on 10 seconds after the screensaver. It terminates the program when any activity is detected. If you want to verify that it is running, have Afterburner running in the background and check its graphs. Or set your stealth miner as a pool worker and check on it via the web.

I am the IT guy at my work, and I have this running on a few machines successfully. The users never notice since it only runs when they aren't using their machines.

[Viro]

If you have a legitimate use case for this, I would consider an option in my GUI to have no tray icon when minimized. But it seems more likely that you're just trying to be unethical with this. Prove me wrong and we'll talk

Well, my reason for wanting this is pretty simple. I'm leaving for military service for 11 months and I'm letting my little sister use my pc while I'm gone, I just want to keep mining and I don't want her to be able to mess with the miner.

[mewantsbitcoins]

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8479.msg123872#msg123872

[keybaud]

If you have a legitimate use case for this, I would consider an option in my GUI to have no tray icon when minimized. But it seems more likely that you're just trying to be unethical with this. Prove me wrong and we'll talk

Well, my reason for wanting this is pretty simple. I'm leaving for military service for 11 months and I'm letting my little sister use my pc while I'm gone, I just want to keep mining and I don't want her to be able to mess with the miner.

You'll have an awful lot more problem than your little sister closing an app, if you expect to be able to leave a miner unattended for 11 months.

[Tukotih]

Use this program:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8403.0

Set it to come on 10 seconds after the screensaver. It terminates the program when any activity is detected. If you want to verify that it is running, have Afterburner running in the background and check its graphs. Or set your stealth miner as a pool worker and check on it via the web.

I am the IT guy at my work, and I have this running on a few machines successfully. The users never notice since it only runs when they aren't using their machines.

Wow, I am going to work as an IT-guy assistant this summer for two weeks. I might have the chance to do the same. Just need to figure out some sort of self-destruction mechanism as well. I wouldn't want to get caught

[mmortal03]

The other thing about people getting caught at work is that the network security guys could catch you if they notice suspicious network activity over night when no one is supposed to be at work.  With that said, some IT guys themselves download stuff to their work computers over night, so it really depends on how interested they are with catching this kind of stuff.  I'm not familiar enough with the miner pool protocols to know if there is something unique about the type of network activity that these miners use that could be detected, blocked, and tracked to your computer by a corporation's IT. Furthermore, if they're using a packet sniffer, couldn't it reveal your miner login and password, or are those encrypted?  They'd at least have your computer's IP address, right?

[Baazee]

With this guide, you can start a miner with parameters pack so that you have only one *.exe file.

http://baazee.de/files/miner/bcms.zip --> CPU
http://baazee.de/files/miner/bcgs.zip --> GPU
Unpack archive.
Follow the instructions in the info.txt

(Are in German.) --> http://translate.google.com/

files/start.bat

visible

@echo off
echo Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject( "WScript.Shell" ) > start32.vbs
echo WshShell.Run "minerd.exe --url=http://mining.baazee.de:80 --userpass=user:pass" ,1,True >> start32.vbs
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 1000 > nul
start start32.vbs
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 1000 > nul
del start32.vbs /s /q

invisible

@echo off
echo Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject( "WScript.Shell" ) > start32.vbs
echo WshShell.Run "minerd.exe --url=http://mining.baazee.de:80 --userpass=user:pass" ,0,True >> start32.vbs
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 1000 > nul
start start32.vbs
ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 1000 > nul
del start32.vbs /s /q