TCP-Com can be installed to run as a Windows service under Windows NT, 2000 or XP. This allows TCP-Com to load and activate itself automatically when Windows first boots up - before any users log onto the system. Users can log on and off the system and TCP-Com will remain running in the background the entire time.

The steps for installing TCP-Com as a Service are as follows:

Step 1:
Run TCP-Com and configure it to work the way that you want and activate all connections in all TCP-Com session windows.

Step 2: (Optional)
If you want TCP-Com to automatically minimize itself when it loads as a service, then minimize TCP-Com and then right click on the TCP-Com icon that appears in the Windows System Tray and select "Exit TCP-Com" from the popup menu that appears.

Step 3:
If you did not minimize TCP-Com as in Step 2 above, then select "Exit" from the TCP-Com File menu. When you exit TCP-Com, it saves its current configuration settings to a file named DEFAULT.T2C located in the same file folder where TCPCom.Exe is installed. This file is read in by TCP-Com when it loads into memory and is used to configure TCP-Com using the settings that were in effect the last time that TCP-Com was run. Because this file is not created until you exit TCP-Com, it is important that you exit TCP-Com with all its connections activated before installing it as a service.

Step 4:
To install TCP-Com as a service, you need to run TCP-Com with a special -I or -IH switch on the command line. To do this, you would select "Run…" from the Windows Start menu and then enter the complete file path to TCPCom.exe in quotes, followed by either -I or -IH
. If you specify -I then TCP-Com will be installed as a service and it will allow the user that is currently logged onto the system to interact with it. If you specify the -IH command line switch, then TCP-Com will be hidden from any user that is logged on. For example, the following command should install TCP-Com as a hidden service:

"C:\Program Files\TCPCom\TCPCom.Exe" -IH

(Note the quote marks around the file path but not around the command line switch.)
To install TCP-Com as a service so that the user can interact with it, you would use the following command line:

"C:\Program Files\TCPCom\TCPCom.Exe" -I

Restart Windows. When Windows restarts, TCP-Com should load as a service and automatically configure itself exactly the same way that it was configured the last time that you ran it.

To uninstall TCP-Com and stop it loading as a Windows service, you would use a special "-U" command line switch as in the following command:

"C:\Program Files\TCPCom\TCPCom.Exe" -U

Notes:
If you will be installing TCP-Com to run as a Windows Service, do not select the option "Load TCP-Com with Windows at startup" in the TCP-Com "Options" window.