Public Channel Player Windows Administration

This guide is to provide instruction on how to use Windows Remote Desktop to log onto a channel player and perform basic windows administration tasks. i.e. performing windows updates, editing IP addresses, editing configuration files

Windows RDP and Remotely Logging into a Channel Player

1. Start your Windows Remote Desktop Program. Make sure that you are on a campus network connection or VPN.
2. The Windows Username will always be AxisTVUser 
3. The password will be unique to your department. If a unique password has not been set, the default factory password is  (removed from public version).
4. When you are first logged in, you should be greeted with the content that is scheduled to play on your TV. If it is blank or you get a black screen, it most likely means no content is scheduled to play at the moment. This is okay.
5. To get out of this Play mode, simply click the 'esc' button and click the left mouse button. You may need to alternate between these several times for the program to recognize the input.
6. Once the input is recognized, you should see a floating box that says Console Ready for Login. Left-Click anywhere on the screen to bring up the login box.
   (note: you may have quickly skipped this floating box while alternating between 'esc' and left-clicking before)
   
   
   
   
7. At the login box, type in admin for the username, and the password will either be the default or it will be the same as the windows credentials. 
   (I strongly recommend changing the visix console from the factory default. More instructions on how to do this will provided below.)
8. 
   
   
9. After you log in, you will see blue Channel Player Menu displayed with options for Play, Shutdown, Command Prompt, Logout, Reboot, Security, Go to Windows Explorer.
   

Going into Windows Explorer Mode

1. At the Channel Player menu, press the 'w' key on your keyboard to close out the AxisTV/Channel Player program and go to full Windows mode. Depending on the age of your channel player, this will take you to either Windows 7 or 10.

2. Now you can start performing whatever windows task is needed. i.e. Installing Windows Updates, Bigfix, etc.

Security and Windows Firewall Rules

Typically, firewall rules would be configured during IP Address assignment and/or channel player installation, but some situations require manual configuration. These rules ensure communication with the on-campus Visix Content Server in order for signs to download scheduled content from the server.

1. There are 3 programs that need to be allowed through the local windows firewall, on all profiles and all ports:
   1. Consumer.exe, file.exe, player.exe
   2. 
2. The easiest way of allowing these is through the Control Panel > Systems and Security > Windows Firewall > Allowed Programs or by searching for "Allow Programs through Windows Firewall" In the Control Panel.
3. Next, click on the button to 'Change Settings' (this may prompt UAC for administrator credentials, which is the AxisTVUser account), then click on 'Allow Another Program...' and a new dialog box should pop up.
   1. 
4. If the programs are not in the pre-populated list, click on the Browse... button and navigate to the Visix Program Files folder, C:\Program Files\Visix\AxisTV Channel Player\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\....\AxisTV Channel Player\, and select each program file: 
   1. Consumer.exe, file.exe, player.exe
5. Be sure to check boxes for both the Home/Work (Private) and Public profiles for the firewall. Click 'Save' and proceed to other tasks or reboot the Channel Player (Next section).

Rebooting the Channel Player

1. Most channel players should start automatically playing content and not go to the Windows Login Screen, but in the event this doesn't happen, there is an easy fix.
2. Assuming you are in the Windows Mode, go to the Start Menu and search for Launch Channel Player. This will start up the Visix program and bring up the floating Console box.
   
3. Log into the Channel Player console to get to the menu as detailed above.
4. press the 'R' key on your keyboard to reboot. A dialog will show up asking if you if you want to 'Start Playing on Boot'. Click 'Yes' and the Channel Player will automatically reboot.
   

Editing Config Files (for Auto-Updating Content)

1. To edit the configuration file, navigate to C:\Program Files\Visix\AxisTV Channel Player\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\....\AxisTV Channel Player\
   
2. In this folder, create a copy of the file named C:\...\AxisTV Channel Player\consumer.exe.config\ (file extension may be hidden from file name). Name the copy ~\consumer.exe-backup.config\. This will ensure you have the original xml file.
3. Open the file C:\...\AxisTV Channel Player\consumer.exe.config\ using notepad or any text editor.
4. The file content should look something like this:
   1. consumer.exe config file

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
      <configuration>
        <appSettings>
          <add key="enabled" value="False" />
          <add key="publisherUrl" value="http://ContentServer:80/PlayerPublisher" />
          <add key="playerId" value="ChannelPlayerIPAddress" />
          <add key="refreshInterval" value="1" />
          <add key="playerTelnetPort" value="6500" />
        </appSettings>
        <system.diagnostics>
          <switches>
            <!--	A value of 0 = off and 1 = on
      				The trace file will be placed in the .\log subdirectory and
      				named ContentConsumerYYYYMMDD.log
      			-->
            <add name="TraceFlag" value="0" />
          </switches>
        </system.diagnostics>
        <startup>
          <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0" />
        </startup>
      </configuration>

   2. Edit these 3 lines with the folowing values:

      1. <add key="enabled" value="true" />
         <add key="publisherUrl" value="http://128.195.138.189:80/PlayerPublisher" />
         <add key="playerId" value="Channel player ipaddress with no periods.ex: 128200123456" />

5. Save the file and close. Reboot the Channel Player as detailed in the section above.

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