Hello all,

I'm currently in need of a rather niche application, where one of the axillary functions of the WinCC HMI I'm working with is to launch a separate application, one which requires text input. Since this HMI runs on a touch screen with no keyboard, and since it's a distinct application which means WinCC's built-in on screen keyboard doesn't work, I would like the launch of the separate application to also launch window's native on screen keyboard functionality.

However, when launching the OSK keyboard, I get a wonderfully descriptive error message, attached below. This doesn't happen when launching the osk using the exe path directly from the command line (it just works).

Below is my code that triggers the error, a very simple script triggered by a button press.

Hi CorruptedMuse,

From what I understand, you want to launch an application external to WinCC, and since the screen is touch-sensitive you also want to launch the keyboard as well, is that correct?

At the Windows level, if you have a touch screen, when you go to open an application and need to enter a value, the Windows keyboard will take you out. I don't quite understand why you activate it from WinCC.

I think I have explained myself!

> ElonksuM_SN_BN

It has to be launched via scripting from WinCC because the OSK will not launch automatically. I'm assuming because the instance of WinCC runs in a virtual environment, but all I can do is turn on and off the OSK via settings and I am not provided the option to have it run automatically (which was referenced in almost every single solution I was looking for to this problem). It seems to be some windows limitation.

I also can't use tablet mode and have the operators click the taskbar because WinCC hides it. I also can't just launch OSK once because it's far to easy to accidentally close or minimize it, which then requires automation intervention to bring it back.