Hide the VAM

In any standard application, you can open the Other tab of the Edit Properties page of the Application Properties dialog and select "Hide VAM from users without Application Manager View privilege" .

This will hide the VAM only when your application is running and then only if an authorized user is not signed in. It does not require you to edit configuration files.

If the application is set to run full-screen without a Windows™ title bar, then there is no way for operators to stop it without the VAM. If there is a title bar with an X in the upper corner, then stopping the application will also cause VTScada to stop. The VAM will not continue to run, hidden from view, when all applications have stopped.

The security privilege, View Application Manager (Application Manager View (-40)), allows selected users to see and use the VAM while it remains hidden to all others. These users may stop the application without also causing VTScada to exit. (Assuming that they have the Stop Application privilege.)

To hide the VAM using the Application Configuration dialog:

Preparation: Ensure that security is enabled in the application and at least one account has the "View Application Manager" privilege.

  1. Open the Application Dialog
  2. Select the Edit Properties page.
  3. Select the Other tab within the Edit Properties page.
  4. Scroll down and select the option, "Hide VAM from users without ...".
  5. Click Apply to save your changes, entering a comment in the dialog that opens to record your reason for making this change.

To hide the VAM using Setup.INI:

Preparation: Before making this configuration change, it is essential that you configure at least one application to start automatically because without access to the VAM, you would have no way of starting any application. (Automatic Start) As a safety measure, VTScada will ignore the HideWAM setting unless at least one application is configured to start automatically.

Ensure that security is enabled within the application, and that the privilege View Application Manager is granted to at least one account.

For VTScada programmers: HideWAM is an older name for HideVAM. In Setup.INI, HideWAM is still used, but if you are creating code that refers to this property, always use the newer property, HideVAM. HideWAM is checked only on startup.

  1. Ensure that the Auto-Start option is enabled in your application.
  2. Open the Setup.INI file, located directly within the VTScada installation directory, using the text editor of your choice.
  3. The property HideWAM should exist. If not, add it (or better: HideVAM) within the [OEM] section.
  4. Set the property equal to 1.

[OEM]
HideVAM = 1

  1. Save and close the Setup.INI configuration file.
  2. Re-start VTScada.

The VAM is hidden automatically.

  1. [Optional] Grant the general privilege View Application Manager to other selected accounts or roles.