I'd like to have a dock entry that launches a Chrome incognito window. Problem is, if I already have an open Chrome window (and when isn't that the case?) Winstep declines to open a second Chrome window and so nothing happens. I successfully worked around the problem by creating a .bat file. But I'm curious whether there's a way to more cleanly accomplish this within Winstep. It seems to me that I saw a configuration item pertaining to the launching of multiple process instances, but I can't find it again. Could that be part of the solution?

Thanks for any information or help!

Cheers,

Here's the solution. Either send a Chrome shortcut from (All) Programs to your desired location, or simply copy it from your Desktop icon, or via WorkShelf--if Hide desktop icons is selected by right-click om WorkShelf--> Properties--> General tab.

Once you send or paste it to your desired location, right-click on the icon which can also be done via WorkShelf then left-click Properties.

At the end of the path in Target, add a space and then type -incognito

To avoid typos, use what I typed in the above sentence. Copy directly after the e in the word type including the word incognito and paste it directly after the last e in the word exe in the Target window. Apply --> Ok.

You can then drag and drop it to your Dock and you can have both Normal and Incognito launch points on the same Dock.

I did some serious digging for you, but that's what we do here at the Winstep Forum. I'm in the process of doing some for myself and will post the results later. Here's the source material for the path. http://geekace.com/2012/05/safe-open-ch ... e-default/

Windy, actually that's what I did. And, unless Chrome wasn't running, a shortcut of that sort did nothing when clicked. It didn't even open a regular window or tab.

What I had to do is make a .bat file like this:

.\chrome.exe --incognito --new-window http://www.google.com/

The --new-window option is probably not required, but seemed like a good idea. The --incognito option should have two, not one, dashes but did seem to work even with one dash. I put the .bat file in the folder containing chrome.exe; that is:

C:\Users\wbmccarty\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application.

The .bat file has worked fine so far. I also used Google image search to locate an appropriate icon, which I resized in Photoshop to 64x64 pixels. So the final result is as good as I could wish. But I can't see why I had to create a .bat file. I know that doing so causes the launched process to have a name other than chrome.exe, so it's fooling WorkShelf into thinking it's a different process than the processes already running Chrome windows. I've very puzzled why the shortcut worked for you but not for me. I speculate it has to do with the mystery configuration item regarding multiple processes, which I can no longer find.

Cheers,

Well I had to try several times before it worked. I closed Chrome and used CCleaner. I think Chrome might be temperamental when doing stuff like that. However, I did have the browser open when I finally found the page I posted and entered the info so closing it probably doesn't matter.

I saw other site's instructions but it didn't work until I found that one which said to use one dash. Maybe if you try several times it might work.

Maybe the process might have something to do with it. I eventually copied it from the shortcut in WorkShelf and pasted it in Documents and then went through the procedure.

BTW, did you put quotes in the window? There shouldn't be any. Some of the other sites said to use quotes. Obviously that's at least one reason why I was having problems at first.

If you have 'Do not launch multiple sessions' enabled then that is by design, no? However, if you press SHIFT when you left click on the shortcut, Winstep will launch a new session.

If 'Do not launch multiple sessions' is disabled, however, then the problem has nothing to do with Winstep but with Chrome itself.