Setting Custom Shell via WMI

Question

I'm trying to set a custom shell in Windows 8.1 IND with the additional lock down features that come with this version of Windows.

I can successfully create the required entries in the Lock Down Manager and turn the custom shell on and off no problem via c# and WMI.

Because we're planning on deploying to a great number of devices, I want to problematically apply the custom shell setup too.

I'm using the WMI Code Generator to aid me in accessing and set the correct values.

However, both the WMI Code Generator and my C# app both crash when attempting to run the code generated by the generator to do this.

Unhandled Exception: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Specified argument was
out of the range of valid values.
Parameter name: path
   at System.Management.ManagementObject.ManagementObjectCTOR(ManagementScope sc
ope, ManagementPath path, ObjectGetOptions options)
   at WMISample.CallWMIMethod.Main()

Code Sample:

public static void Main()
        {
            try
            {
                ManagementObject classInstance = 
                    new ManagementObject("root\\StandardCimv2\\embedded", 
                    "WESL_UserSetting", null);

                // Obtain in-parameters for the method
                ManagementBaseObject inParams = 
                    classInstance.GetMethodParameters("SetCustomShell");

                // Add the input parameters.
                inParams["DefaultAction"] =  3;
                inParams["Shell"] =  "C:\\Dash\\someapp.exe";
                inParams["Sid"] =  "S-1-5-21-2560287794-1129801719-3036876794-1001";

                // Execute the method and obtain the return values.
                ManagementBaseObject outParams = 
                    classInstance.InvokeMethod("SetCustomShell", inParams, null);

                // List outParams
                Console.WriteLine("Out parameters:");
                Console.WriteLine("ReturnValue: " + outParams["ReturnValue"]);
            }
            catch(ManagementException err)
            {
                MessageBox.Show("An error occurred while trying to execute the WMI method: " + err.Message);
            }
        }

There is no path mentioned in the documentation. Can anyone advise why the code isn't setting the custom shell?

Answer 1

An old question, but I solved this problem by turning on the shell launcher as specified here: MSDN. It's under the "Turn on Shell Launcher" section.