How To Make UiPath Assistant To Stay In System Tray And Not Be Launched As UI Application, When Server Is Started / Rebooted?

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Starting from UiPath Robot [fresh installation or upgrade] v 20.4.x, when the Windows servers are restarted or rebooted, UiPath Assistant launches as Desktop application. How to make sure that UiPath Assistant should only show as icon in System Tray but does not launch as a Desktop Application/UI on Windows Login?

Issue Description:
Starting from UiPath Robot [fresh installation or upgrade] v 20.4.x, when the Windows servers are restarted or rebooted, UiPath Assistant launches as a Desktop application. How to make sure that UiPath Assistant should only show as an icon in System Tray but does not launch as a Desktop Application/UI on Windows Login?

When the Robot is installed or upgraded from a lower version to 20.4.x or later, if the option Automatically Start Assistant with Windows is selected, this would make UiPath Assistant launched on every Windows restart/reboot.

Reference:

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Automatically Start Assistant with Windows is disabled by default when the fresh installation for Robot is performed and unless this option is manually selected UiPath Assistant will not be started on System launch/ reboot, as mentioned in UiPath Studio MSI Installation.




Resolution:
To enable or disable UiPath Assistant from opening on Windows start-up, below are the 2 approache.

Approach #1: Change Startup Applications

To make any application a Windows startup app or remove it from being a startup app, refer to the Microsoft blog - Change Which Apps Run Automatically At Startup In Windows for guidance to check the application in Windows Startup Apps or by using the below steps:

  1. Change the startup state of the application
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  1. Press the Windows logo key + R , type: shell:startup , then select OK. This opens the Startup folder
  1. Right-click the UiPath Assistant shortcut and choose Properties
  1. Set the Run state to Minimized as shown in above screenshot
  1. Add "--startup" in the target as shown below

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Approach #2: Re-run the same MSI or EXE installer

If the same installer is triggered we have the option to uncheck only Automatically Start Assistant with Windows option and other settings would be left as they were before, hence there will not be any impact on the existing setup.

Note: The above links will be useful when the UiPath Assistant needs to be enabled or disabled as a start-up application. However, to have UiPath Assistant as a startup application but launch only in the system tray and not as desktop UI, follow the below steps :

  1. Disable UiPath Assistant from Start-up using any of the above approaches.
  2. Run a PowerShell script which can be set to run on every Windows restart or reboot. Below is a sample script which starts UiPath Assistant in the System Tray:
  • Start-Process -FilePath "${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}\UiPath\Studio\UiPathAssistant\UiPath.Assistant.exe" -WindowStyle Hidden (adapt the path of the UiPath.Assistant.exe with the actual location in your environment).

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