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Need Desktop icon to run Brother Control Center 4 (CC4 system tray program)

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timmy2:
Brother printers equipped with scanning ability come with a program called Control Center for using the scanner. It used to be that this was a standalone program one could run from the Desktop. But as of version 4 (ControlCenter4) it is only accessible from the System Tray/Notification Area.  Moreover, left- or right-clicking on it there reveals a popup menu that includes an Open command, which will then open the program. It is possible to open the program by double-clicking on this icon if you configure the Taskbar to always make it visible. Even then, some users forget that it's available, thus my desire to add a Desktop icon. See this old Experts-Exchange post (not by me) as an example.

skwire:
1. Right-click the taskbar and open the Windows Task Manager application.
2. Launch the Brother program from the tray icon.
3. In the Processes tab of the Task Manager, find the Brother scanner application executable in the list.  If you can't find, or don't know, the executable name, use the Task Manager Applications tab to right-click the task and choose "Go To Process" which should take you to the executable name in the Processes tab.
4. Right-click the executable and choose Open File Location.  A Windows Explorer window should open with the executable already highlighted.
5. In this Windows Explorer window, right-click the highlighted executable and choose "Send to > Desktop (create shortcut)" from the menu.

Of course, this set of steps assumes that the Brother scanner program has its own executable.  Please let us know if that's not the case.

timmy2:
Thank you skwire. I had tried finding the executable prior to submitting my post but I followed your steps and ended up where I have already been.

In Program Files (x86) there's a folder for ControlCenter4. In it are 3 possible "Applications" with .exe extents: BrCtrlCntr.exe is the filename for the currently open ControlCenter4 window. But if I right-click on BrCtrlCntr.exe and select Open, nothing happens. I closed the existing instance and tried opening the same exe, and still got nothing.

I chased down the program that is used at startup to load the icon in the System Tray and it is a different exe file in the ControlCenter4 folder: BrCcBoot.exe.  The third and last exe is named BrCcUxSys.exe.  If I disable "Start ControlCenter on computer startup" in its Preferences and reboot, -- so after bootup there is no instance of it running -- opening any of the above exe's does nothing.

As far as I can tell the only way to get ControlCenter4 to appear at all is to set it to load at startup in its Preferences.

Last bit of evidence: while the ControlCenter window is open (having opened it from the System Tray), if I right-click on its Taskbar button there is no option to save it as a Desktop shortcut.

skwire:
I did some testing around in a virtual machine and here's the best I could come up with:

1) Right-click the CC4 icon in your tray, choose Preferences, and enable both options: Start ControlCenter on computer startup & Open the main window on ControlCenter startup.  Click OK.
2) Right-click the CC4 icon in your tray and choose Close.
3) Create a shortcut to BrCcBoot.exe and put the shortcut on your desktop.  Right-click the shortcut, choose Properties, and a /autorun parameter to it.  Basically, make the Target line look like this (your actual path might be different):  "C:\Program Files (x86)\ControlCenter4\BrCcBoot.exe" /autorun
4) Click OK in the Properties window but do not start up the CC4 application yet.
5) Click your Start button and type in msconfig.exe and run that application.  Go to the Startup tab and uncheck the Brother Industries entries: Status Monitor Application & Brother ControlCenter.
6) Reboot your computer.  After rebooting, that desktop shortcut you created should launch the app and display the main window.  The only caveat is that you will have to exit the application via the CC4 icon and the Close option.  If you click the X in the CC4 window, it just closes the window and leaves the process running in the tray.  With it running in the tray, running the application from the desktop shortcut doesn't do anything, i.e., it doesn't redisplay the window.

If this method is unacceptable, and you don't mind the CC4 application running in the tray at all times, I could probably write a tiny app that you could launch from a desktop shortcut that would simply display the CC4 window once it's been "closed" to the tray.  Does that make sense?  Either way, let us know how you want to go from here.

timmy2:
I did some testing around in a virtual machine and here's the best I could come up with:

1) Right-click the CC4 icon in your tray, choose Preferences, and enable both options: Start ControlCenter on computer startup & Open the main window on ControlCenter startup.  Click OK.
2) Right-click the CC4 icon in your tray and choose Close.
3) Create a shortcut to BrCcBoot.exe and put the shortcut on your desktop.  Right-click the shortcut, choose Properties, and a /autorun parameter to it.  Basically, make the Target line look like this (your actual path might be different):  "C:\Program Files (x86)\ControlCenter4\BrCcBoot.exe" /autorun
4) Click OK in the Properties window but do not start up the CC4 application yet.
5) Click your Start button and type in msconfig.exe and run that application.  Go to the Startup tab and uncheck the Brother Industries entries: Status Monitor Application & Brother ControlCenter.
6) Reboot your computer.  After rebooting, that desktop shortcut you created should launch the app and display the main window.  The only caveat is that you will have to exit the application via the CC4 icon and the Close option.  If you click the X in the CC4 window, it just closes the window and leaves the process running in the tray.  With it running in the tray, running the application from the desktop shortcut doesn't do anything, i.e., it doesn't redisplay the window.

If this method is unacceptable, and you don't mind the CC4 application running in the tray at all times, I could probably write a tiny app that you could launch from a desktop shortcut that would simply display the CC4 window once it's been "closed" to the tray.  Does that make sense?  Either way, let us know how you want to go from here.
-skwire (July 25, 2018, 02:44 PM)
--- End quote ---

Thank you for the detailed and working solution, Skwire.  It worked for me, though running it again is the catch. 

For the elderly people who will be using these PCs it would be much better if they could simply double-click on a Desktop icon and see the scanning solution appear.  Controlling how they close it is unpredictable. If it's not a big project could you please try the "tiny app" approach?

By the way, though my profile indicates I'm not a subscriber I actually purchased a Lifetime license several years ago. I just found the 2016 email from Mouser where he tells me how to try applying my license code under my gmail account so I'm going to do that now.

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