In the world of digital art there is usually a computer involved. This is great because computers can do things humans can’t.
Often times exhibits will run from a few hours to maybe a weekend and there is usually the opportunity to oversee the installation during this time and address any errors or issues immediately.
However, sometimes digital art installations need to be installed for much longer; weeks, months, even permanently.
This becomes a challenge of its own for there is much complexity when it comes to long term reliable operations of computers.
To help out I have have listed here a number of steps that can greatly increase the reliability of the digital art installation process. My weapon of choice is the Windows 10 / 11 PC. They are much better than the Mac ecosystem for installations, and they have more software available and are not quite as verbose as Linux.
These tips may change over time, and new ones may come up. Feel free to get in touch if there are not working or if you have others to add!
1) No Password on login.
If the Computer needs to ask for a password it won’t start automatically. Make sure to disable this so that it will boot every time. Might be an OpSec issue depending on install.
On the new Windows 11 this tool seemed to work much better, AutoLogon.
2) Auto Power on after crash - Found in BIOS (Tap F2 on start).
If the computer has a power outage or crashes and needs to be power cycled it is important that it will restart when power is applied. This is different for every computer but you can most likely find it in the BIOS settings. BE CAREFUL!
3) Turn off system sounds.
Nothing is worse than some weird system sound happening when it comes to installations with an audio component. Ensure this doesn’t happen to you by disabling the system sounds.
4) Turn off auto updates.
Literally the bane of every Windows user are the auto updates. Not only are they guaranteed to happen at the worst time but they usually have a screen upon the next load telling you about the useless features that were changed and preventing your installation from booting. Fix this now and make sure it works for you!
5) Use the Windows 10 IOT / Enterprise Edition OS.
This is still kind of a mystery as to how you get this but when ordering a computer with an included OS make sure to ask the vendor if they can install this version. Might cost extra but it 10x blows the Home Edition and Pro Edition OS out of the water with more feature, less pop-ups, and auto updates disabled by default.
6) Remove taskbar from secondary screens.
If you are doing anything projection or screen related it is important to make sure that the secondary screen your content is displayed on has no task bar. This is for in case the app crashes and leaves the desktop shown. You don’t want to have some obvious thing like the task bar shown. Not a good look.
7) Turn the desktop background to dark grey or black.
This way when the app crashes and leaves the desktop show not only will there be no task bar but there will also be no super obvious Windows 10 default desktop image shown. Really not a good look!
8) Turn off taskbar notifications.
Once again I am not sure anyone ever actually asked for these but make sure to turn them off so that they don’t pop up and notify you of the new Angry Birds game at some inopportune time.
9) Turn off auto screen sleep.
This is a basic one but a critical one. Most times if the screen goes off into sleep mode so does any applications and therefore your art installation. Ensure this doesn’t happen by disabling screen sleep.
10) Enable Seconds in Clock.
This is a great tip when working on an installation. If you can see the seconds ticking in the system clock you can be sure it hasn’t frozen. Great for troubleshooting if a particular app freezes or is unresponsive.
11) Disable Microsoft Edge & Internet Explorer.
It has been said that “the only thing IE is good for is downloading another browser.” It’s time to put these out to pasture indefinitely. Lots of times they will try and update, or open automatically, or some other thing no one asked for so be sure to disable them and use Chrome or Firefox as a main browser instead.
12) Disable the “Get More Out of Windows” message.
Once you start relying on these installations to run these little pop-ups make you reconsider the meaning of the universe for they are so incredibly useless and prevent the computer from launching plus have no time out. Like what were the devs thinking?!? I have had to travel to a site and manually click “okay” more than once and it should never ever happen again. Make sure you don’t have to do this.
13) Use the “Task Scheduler” to Restart the Computer Daily.
If your installation does not need to run 24/7 365 it is a good idea to restart it once in a while. This will clear most caches and refresh the system. Make sure you put shortcuts to your apps you need to launch in the “Startup” folder OR use Task Scheduler to launch them at a certain time.
14) Can it run on an Arduino or Raspberry Pi instead?
This is a question you should have asked a long time ago but it is worth repeating here. If you need an LED to turn on when the temperature changes, or maybe just need to pull weather data from the cloud, either one of these devices can do that and are 1000% better suited for long term continuous installations.