I'm still running the Windows 7 RC1, and found a neat feature that might mess with the Platform. Following some updates, it will automatically restart. Now, it does tell you (and gives you a 15 minute countdown) but it's easy to miss if you get sidetracked. And once the counter gets to zero, it simply automatically reboots, seemingly without any consideration to what you are doing.
Won't this interfere with portable apps and the Platform, since upon exit, the launchers are supposed to perform cleanup operations? They won't do that if they're forced to close, will they?
I assume that at some point, Microsoft will give developers some level of access to that API so they can make their applications react to it. I don't follow that stuff, so maybe they already have.
Either way, IANAP but if the Platform can somehow monitor that process - since it's on a 15 minute countdown, a quick check every 10 minutes will mean the Platform has at least 5 minutes to react. The platform should then call separate attention to the user and present options. It could offer to close the platform, all portable apps (though that wouldn't apply to non-PAF portable apps, e.g. CCleaner without the launcher, but those apps probably don't have upon-shutdown actions), or to do nothing and let the user close them down on their own; however with a set amount of time to spare (30 seconds enough?) they should all close down automatically, to preserve portability.
Just a thought.
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We don't need to monitor it directly. We're gonna be monitoring Windows for a shutdown question and tell it no at the Platform level. That way you also can't accidentally shutdown Windows without closing stuff properly, too.
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I use now PApps for having shared configs of the same app in different partitions on a computer, & i have the platform to open on windows start on both partitions. So, it is always open, with Miranda & aMSN. I always close the apps i'm running, but never the platform.
It's not exclusive to Win7. I've seen Vista and even XP do the countdown thing after an update, too. It seems random though... it doesn't always do it, sometimes it just asks whether you want to restart and waits for user input.
I didn't use Vista long enough to see it, but I don't agree Win7's is like XP's. I think 7's was a little sneakier, though IIRC XP doesn't give you the option to postpone it.
So if the Platform is running, it will prevent Windows from automatically shutting down? Will it be able to? I mean, when Windows closes, it forces non-responsive apps to shut down, whether they're ready or not. Now I have seen some apps able to stop the shutdown, but it's never a properly working app denying an automatic shutdown; more a troublesome app denying a user-initiated shutdown. The kind of shutdown where you just have to hold the power button down because you've lost all control of the computer.
But Vista's behavior is identical to 7's.
Regarding the shutdown question: Windows sends a message, WM_QUERYSHUTDOWN, to all apps that are running whenever a "proper" shutdown begins (holding the power button down for five seconds doesn't count!). If an app ignores the query (most do because there's usually no need to cancel a shutdown), Windows treats it as if the app said "yes". However, any app is allowed to respond to this query with a "no" answer, in which case Windows will abort the shutdown.
It doesn't abort the shutdown, it pauses it and dims the desktop the same way that UAC does and give the user a list of the apps that wouldn't shutdown and asks the user if they want to continue, at which point if you say yes it just goes right on ahead and kills the apps and if you say no it aborts and returns to the desktop. In any case, the only way that I can think of that the OP would have the trouble he described is perhaps he was typing at the time and the restart prompt stole focus so a spacebar or return hit had the same effect as clicking the default option. I have this happen all the time with random message boxes and such... so annoying. Or maybe there's some switch to automatically restart after updates that he enabled... but I don't know of any such option off the top of my head.
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I thought it only dimmed the desktop like that if there were apps that weren't responding. I was pretty sure active refusal of WM_QUERYSHUTDOWN (i.e. returning FALSE) immediately aborts... am I mistaken?