The Thinfinity VirtualUI Development Mode

The Thinfinity VirtualUI development mode was designed to provide a simple way to implement and test the desktop application web-enabling.
When you run your web-enabled desktop application in debug mode from your favorite integrated development environment (IDE) —Visual Studio, Delphi RAD Studio, etc.—, the VirtualUI component, included in the application, makes a call to the Thinfinity VirtualUI Development Server.

This call starts the server, if it’s not running yet. When the server starts, the VirtualUI tray icon is added to the system tray bar and you will also find a Thinfinity.VirtualUI.Server.exe instance running, if you explore the Task Manager.

Calling the Thinfinity VirtualUI Server address —http://127.0.0.1:6080 by default— from an internet browser will show the application in dual mode: in the desktop and in the browser.

The Development Mode Interaction with AVAST Antivirus

But this sequence can’t always be completed successfully. A VirtualUI user contacted our support team because their program didn’t run with Thinfinity VirtualUI in debug mode. When they launched the program, the VirtualUI welcome popup was shown, but nothing else happened. After some testing, we found out that the AVAST antivirus is blocking VirtualUI Development Manager, thus preventing the execution of web-enabled programs in debug mode. This is because the antivirus considers that VirtualUI might incur in “dangerous behavior”. How can you tell if you are having this problem? Symptoms are:

• The Thinfinity VirtualUI icon does not appear in the system tray bar.
• Thinfinity VirtualUI Server Manager does not run when invoked from the web-enabled application.

How to solve this problem

In order to solve this situation, all you need to do is to add the Thinfinity VirtualUI installation folder —typically c:\Program Files\Thinfinity\VirtualUI— to the AVAST exception list by using the Blocked & Allowed apps settings screen in Avast Antivirus.

Once this is done, you will be able to run your web-enabled applications in the Thinfinity VirtualUI development mode.