2. Software Watchdog

SiteKiosk has been equipped with various safety features. This includes a software watchdog (watchdog.exe). Watchdog.exe is a program that is called at the start of SiteKiosk and runs in the background.

SiteKiosk has to report back to Watchdog.exe at certain time intervals which are adjustable. Failure to do so indicates the likelyhood that the browser is hanging or even crashed. In this case, Watchdog.exe will restart sitekiosk.exe. This ensures higher up-time of the application.
If you still want to disable the Software Watchdog, open your .skcfg configuration file from the directory ..\SiteKiosk\Config\.. with an editor then locate the following entry <watchdog>true</watchdog>  and change it to <watchdog>false</watchdog>.

In addition to the Watchdog function, the software includes a feature that restarts the entire system after several crashes. After a crash, SiteKiosk will restart the Watchdog program. This may occur if, for example, the program can not be started because of low memory. After three unsuccessful attempts to start the computer will reboot automatically which fixes the problem in most cases.
If you still want to disable the memory monitoring of the Watchdog, open your .skcfg configuration file from the directory ..\SiteKiosk\Config\ .. with an editor and locate the following entry and replace
<start-monitoring emergency-interval="300" emergency-count="10">true</start-monitoring>
with
<start-monitoring emergency-interval="300" emergency-count="10">false</start-monitoring>.

SiteKiosk also monitors the number of SiteKiosk crashes within a certain time interval. By default, these are 10 (emergency-count) within 300 seconds (emergency-interval). If the number is exceeded, a system reboot will be triggered. You can adjust these values ​​to meet your requirements.



3. Screensaver

You can deactivate the SiteKiosk screensaver function, but this is NOT recommended for stability and privacy reasons. Open your configuration file with an editor and look for the entry<screensaver enabled="true"> and change it from true to false.



4. Screen Resolution

SiteKiosk will, by default, use your Windows screen resolution.  Forcing a different screen resolution for SiteKiosk is no longer editable from the configuration tool for SiteKiosk version 7 and later. If you want to specify a different resolution that SiteKiosk will use when started, you can open the configuration file with an editor and look for the following: 

<screenmode>

<xpres>800</xpres>

<yres>600</yres>

<bitdepth>16</bitdepth>

<frequency>0</frequency>

<autoset>false</autoset>

...

</screenmode>

Set to true AutoSet and change the settings for screen size (xres), height (yres), color quality (bitdepth) and refresh rate (frequency) your Wüschen accordingly.



5. Restrict SiteKiosk to a Portion of the Screen

From SiteKiosk 7.8 on the SiteKiosk application may be limited to a portion of the screen. To set the position, look for the following in the SiteKiosk configuration file: 

<screenmode>

...

<workarea enabled="false">

<capture-mouse>true</capture-mouse>

<left>0</left>

<top>0</top>

<right>100</right>

<bottom>100</bottom>

</workarea>

</screenmode>

Set workarea to true in order to use the following values. The value of capture-mouse determines whether the mouse can be used outside of SiteKiosk area. The other values ​​are coordinates in percentages (0-100) in relation to screen dimensions.



6. Disable Favicons

You can disable the display of the favicon in the address bar. Open the configuration file with an editor and look for the entry <usefavicons enabled="true"/> and set it to false.



7. IE Compatibility Mode

You have the option to disable IE compatibility mode for the SiteKiosk browser, this may help to resolve display problems on web pages. Open the configuration file with an editor and look for the entry <ie8-compatibility-view enabled="true"/> and set it to false. The value false will set the browser to IE7 mode. The value true will use the rendering mode that fits the installed Internet Explorer version, 8000 on systems with IE8, 9000 on systems with IE9 and so on.

On systems with IE11 there is an optional attribute named emulation-mode besides the enabled attribue. If you add the attribute you can use a decimal value to force a specific compatibility mode for SiteKiosk, e.g. IE9 mode <ie8-compatibility-view enabled="true" emulation-mode="9000" />.
If you are using the SiteKiosk option to edit the user agent of the browser you can also use values that force a specific browser mode, e.g. 9999 instead of 9000. This can lead to display problems on web pages that are not compatible with the forced rendering mode.
The values are different and depend on the Internet Explorer in use, please use the Microsoft documentation for the proper values. Additional information can also be found in our FAQs.

The naming of this option to IE8 has to do with the timing of when this option was introduced.



8. Deactivate SiteKiosk Player

The display of different types of media (RSS, Flash, PDF, video and audio) is integrated with the SiteKiosk browser's built-in player. This increases the security and standardized operation. Especially with dynamically generated PDF files, it can happen, that this may cause display problems.
To disable the built-in player for some media types, please open the configuration file with an editor and locate the entry for the line <mime-filters> and following that line is a list of media types. If the entry <filter enabled="true" player="pdf" content="application/pdf" action="2" /> is changed to this <filter enabled="false" player="pdf" content="application/pdf" action="2" />, then the built-in player for PDF documents will be disabled.



9. Activate Print Preview

The SiteKiosk browser can use the print preview feature of the Internet Explorer.  To enable this feature, you must open your SiteKiosk configuration with an editor and edit the following lines: 

<printtemplates>

<enabled>false</enabled>

...

</printtemplates>

Set enabled to true and save the change. Please note that because the print preview is not integrated fully into SiteKiosk, all functions might not be available.



10. Allow the IE Download Dialog

It is possible to deactivate the SiteKiosk Download Manager for specific pages. In this case the normal IE download dialog will be displayed again (Open/Save As). For security reasons, if you allow the IE download dialog, you should also use the restricted SiteKiosk user to ensure that your system is as protected as possible. The necessary setting must be changed in the SiteKiosk configuration file.

Open the configuration file in an editor and replace the following entry <msdownloaddlg-urls/> with:

<msdownloaddlg-urls>

<url>http://aWebPage.com/*</url>

</msdownloaddlg-urls>

Wildcard are allowed for the target URL to change the behavior for all downloads from a domain.
If you are having problems finding the correct URL, you can use the SiteKiosk log files to find out the URLs in question.
Make sure in the SiteKiosk configuration that logging is enabled and also activate the debug output window. If you start SiteKiosk, the log entries are displayed in a separate window. Now try the download again to determine the exact URL.



11. Deactivate Anti-Sabotage Mode

You can disable the anti-sabotage mode of SiteKiosk if, for example, a requested page shows potentially dangerous script behaviors, such as repeated calls to the same function. Open the configuration file with an editor and look for the entry <antisabotage enabled="true"/> and set it to false.



12. Digital Signage (Legacy Product)

If you combine Digital Signage (legacy product, please use SiteCaster now) and SiteKiosk on the main screen of a machine the Digital Signage area will be topmost by default, therefore it might be on top of other applications. You can change that by manually editing your SiteKiosk configuration file.

Please open the SiteKiosk configuration with an editor and change topmost from true to false:

<sitecasterwindow enabled="true" topmost="true">

13. Payment Information

SiteKiosk shows various payment information, that usually contains rate and payment method explanations.

Part of this information can be edited in the advanced options of the payment devices configuration page. Other parts, e.g. the rate information on the Portal page or in the payment dialog, change dynamically according to the configured payment devices. If for example the only activated device is the Time Limiter more neutral texts will be displayed.

Do you intend to use these neutral texts for other payment devices as well, you can change a single variable in a script file (SiteKiosk 8.2 and above).

Please open the file ..\SiteKiosk\SiteCash\hidedefaultpayinfo.js with an editor and change gb_hidedefaultpayinfos from false to true:

var gb_hidedefaultpayinfos = false;

14. Allow Drag&Drop in the SiteKiosk Browser

By default drag&drop is disabled in the SiteKiosk browser (this does not apply to ActiveX controls within the browser). It can be allowed by manually changing the configuration file.

Please open the SiteKiosk configuration with an editor and change block-copy-move from true to false:

<block-copy-move>true</block-copy-move>

15. Using the Default IE Error Pages

If you do not want SiteKiosk to use its own navigation error page but the default Internet Explorer error pages instead you can manually add <show-nav-error>false</show-nav-error> to /sitekiosk-configuration/browserbar/ in the SiteKiosk configuration file you are using:

<show-nav-error>false</show-nav-error>

16. Exit SiteKiosk automatically after X seconds of idle time 17. Activate PnP Device Watcher

In SiteKiosk 8.9 and above you can enable the monitoring of the insertion, modification and removal of plug'n'play devices (USB and COM emulation). Manually change pnpwatcher in the SiteKiosk configuration with an editor from false to true to enable the watcher:

<pnpwatcher enabled="true"/>

After the change you need to start SiteKiosk in order to activate the new value. After that, the monitoring is also active when SiteKiosk itself does not run. This is because it is being done by the SiteRemote Client Service, that runs independently from SiteKiosk.

Monitoring of PnP devices is based on WMI events (Windows Management Instrumentation).

Active monitoring generates log entries like this, that can be analyzed within SiteRemote:
20 1023 2014-07-24 12:51:00 +0200 [SiteRemote Client] PnP device inserted: DeviceID=USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_&PROD_USB_DISK_2.0&REV_PMAP\07102CA8228E9994&0; Caption=USB DISK 2.0 USB Device; ConfigManagerErrorCode=0; Status=OK;

Note that the activation of the PnP watcher generates a significant number of log entries. Inserting a single USB device can generate up to 5 different events. Therefore you should make use of include and/or exclude to filter out the entries appropriate for your use case. Usually it is sufficient to use include or exclude, if you combine them, exclude overrules include. Using wildcards (*) is supported. The filter uses the DeviceID, that e.g. shows up in the log entry (see above).

<plugin name="SiteRemote" enabled="true" clsid="2F5B83E1-88BC-44D2-9E5D-B3D621C4A292">

...

<pnpwatcher enabled="true">

<include>HID\*</include>

<include>USB\*</include>

<include>USBSTOR\DISK*</include>

<exclude>*VID_8087*</exclude>

<exclude>*VID_0409*</exclude>

</pnpwatcher>

</plugin>

18. Clear Temporary Internet Files, Cookies and Certificates at Midnight

To clear temporary Internet files, cookies and certificates (based on the logout settings) at midnight you can change the following setting manually from false to true:

<clear-cache-midnight>false</clear-cache-midnight>

19. Block HTTP post file uploads (prevents, for instance, file attachments)

This option prevents users from uploading files from local computers by means of Web forms.

Note that the blocking of file uploads depends on the techniques used on a specific web page. SiteKiosk cannot block all methods used for file uploads. You may then use the Windows & Dialogs management to block associated dialogs.

Since users should generally not be allowed to access files stored on your terminal, we recommend that you turn off this option only if you run SiteKiosk under the limited SiteKiosk user. By default, the dialog boxes associated with this feature are only allowed for that user.

To let SiteKiosk try to block post file uploads you can change the following setting manually from false to true:

<no-http-uploads>false</no-http-uploads>

20. Remove restriction to limit windows to the SiteKiosk display area

By default you cannot move windows outside of the display area of SiteKiosk. You can remove this limitation by opening your SiteKiosk configuration with an editor and add the following line right after line containing <windowmanager>:

<disallow-window-clipping>true</disallow-window-clipping>

21. Options removed from the SiteKiosk Configuration GUI

Over the years of developing SiteKiosk numerous features have been added to the software. At the same time support for some features that are rarely used anymore has been ceased.

These features have been removed from the GUI of the SiteKiosk configuration. Nonetheless they can still be used but without official support from PROVISIO.

The cancelled features can be used and configured by manually editing the configuration file of SiteKiosk with the help of an editor. The following is a basic list that includes mostly just the main nodes within the XML structure of the SiteKiosk configuration file to provide a general idea of what to look for.

Videomail/Webcam:

<plugin name="SiteCam" enabled="false" clsid="5aadd108-c1ba-4fe7-8096-65cf19d58e14">...</plugin>

<mediamailprice enabled="false">1.11</mediamailprice>

Note that you cannot fully configure Videomail/Webcam with SiteKiosk versions after 8.91 as the GUI of the SiteKiosk configuration is required to detect the hardware.
 
Heatmap:

<heatmap enabled="false">...</heatmap>

Skin Zones:

<siteskin>

...

<zone>

<zonename>Name of the Skin Zone</zonename>

<skinname>Name of the Skin</skinname>

<url>URL the zone applies to</url>

<language>7</language>

<language>9</language>

</zone>

</siteskin>

Burning CD-ROMs:

<allow-burn>false</allow-burn>

<show-copyright-notice>false</show-copyright-notice>

<cdrecordingprice enabled="false">1.11</cdrecordingprice>

Day Rates for Payment Devices:

<plugin name="SiteCash" enabled="false" clsid="476d1841-6b58-424f-a9e5-f024f0384ab1">

...

<time-zone>...</time-zone>

</plugin>

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See also

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