Changelog

Hidden programs no longer flash on screen. Watchdog used to look for a hidden program’s windows on a timer, so a window could stay on screen for up to two seconds before it was hidden. Now Watchdog hides it the moment it appears. What is left is the program’s own delay in carrying that out, usually a fraction of a second.

Windows that appear later are hidden too. Watchdog used to stop hiding windows 15 seconds after the program started, so a window opened after that stayed on screen. Now every window is kept hidden for its first 15 seconds, whenever it appears. A window shown again after that is left alone, so a program’s tray icon can still open it.

Always on top works for slow starters. A program whose first window appears more than 15 seconds after it starts is now brought to the front as well.

Upgrading keeps start at login as you set it. The installer now asks about starting at login on a first install only. An upgrade keeps the setting as it is, so turning it off in Settings is no longer undone by the next upgrade. An upgrade still repairs an existing logon task, including the broken one 2026.40.0 created.

Upgrading a running Watchdog. The installer stops Watchdog itself, closing the apps it supervises properly, and starts it again afterwards. Before, it asked you to close Watchdog first, so a silent install (/VERYSILENT) on a running kiosk could not go ahead. Uninstalling stops it the same way.

Installing with a deployment tool. When the installer runs as SYSTEM with nobody signed in, the way a tool such as Intune runs it, the logon task now goes to the account Windows signs in automatically. Before, Watchdog then did not start at login. With no automatic sign-in there is no task: sign in as the account that uses the PC and turn it on in Settings.

Your own configuration file. If Watchdog runs on a configuration file of its own (-c), turning on start at login now keeps it, so after a reboot Watchdog starts with the same list of apps rather than the default one.

Starting at logon works again. 2026.40.0 registered its logon task with the wrong program: a python.exe in the install folder that does not exist. Windows accepted the task and then failed it at every logon without a message, so after a reboot Watchdog simply did not start, and nothing it supervises did either. Installing 2026.41.0 with Start Promethist Watchdog automatically at login ticked registers the task again, correctly. The installer remembers that box from the last install, so check it is ticked; or, after installing, turn Settings → "Start Promethist Watchdog at login" off and on again. To check an existing PC, run schtasks /query /tn PromethistWatchdog /xml and look for PromethistWatchdog.exe in <Command>.

Watchdog now also refuses to register a logon task for a program that does not exist, and says so, instead of leaving a task that fails in silence.

Watching a server by its web address. An app entry can now be a web address instead of a program — for a server the kiosk depends on but does not run, such as a signalling server on a cloud machine that cannot send email itself. Tick Only check a web address when adding it. It gets a row in the table, green while the address answers and red when it stops, and an email both ways. See Watching a server by its web address.

Reporting status to a monitoring server. For customers who watch their kiosks from their own dashboard, Watchdog can send a short message every five minutes for each program, saying whether it is running. The message format is a template the receiving side defines, with an Azure Monitor preset, and the API key is kept in the Windows Credential Manager. Off by default. See Reporting status to a monitoring server.

Smaller things that came with them:

Proving the network was the problem. Watchdog now measures this PC’s own internet connection on a schedule and writes the result to one file per day, kept for ten years by default. Every few minutes it times a connection to several public servers; once an hour it measures actual throughput. When a customer says the kiosk was slow last month, the answer is a spreadsheet rather than an opinion. See Proving the network was the problem.

It is on by default and costs a few kilobytes per check. The hourly throughput test moves real data (about 360 MB a day at the defaults) and can be turned off on its own, or the whole thing switched off, in Settings → Internet connection.

Smaller things that came with it:

Shutting down when the power fails. On a kiosk with a UPS, whatever is watching the mains can now tell Watchdog to close everything tidily and power the PC off before the battery runs out: it emails the alert, stops every app in order using each one’s own grace period, then runs shutdown /s. A pending shutdown can be called off while the power is only flickering — with wdog shutdown --cancel, or from a red banner that appears in Watchdog’s own window.

There are two ways to trigger it. wdog shutdown works over the existing control channel and opens no port, which suits UPS software that can run a command on the kiosk. For a building management system that cannot run anything there, an optional HTTP endpoint can be switched on; it is off by default, accepts one instruction and nothing else, and is guarded by a password kept in the Windows Credential Manager plus an address allow-list. See Shutting down when the power fails.

Smaller things that came with it:

The first release.

Versions are dates, in the company’s scheme: YYYY.ww.index — the ISO week-year, the ISO week, and the build’s order within that week counting from zero. So this is the first build of week 36 of 2026, and the next one that week would be 2026.36.1. The git tag carries the same string with no v prefix.

What is in it: