I was playing with the soft front panel (SFP) program for my VNA, 835x.EXE. If you run it from the command line with /? switch
835x.EXE /?
You get
Keysight Network Analyzer software, Copyright (c) Keysight Technologies
Usage:
835x [/?] [/RegServer | /UnregServer]
? - Print this help message
RegServer - Register 835x Automation server.
UnregServer - Unregister 835x Automation server.
It's worth noting that this usage documentation does not include the fact that you can/should pass it an argument for the port you want to connect to, e.g.
835x.EXE PXI10::CHASSIS1::SLOT1::FUNC0::INSTR
But back to the question at hand. What is the Automation Server? How and when would I use it? I'm guessing that maybe what this does is create a Windows Service for my VNA that I could start and stop and configure to automatically start at boot or log in? Is there a way to pass the port to the server?
The "/?" isn't actually very helpful for users.
The /regserver and /unregserver options are used by the VNA installer application. They are not intended for a customer to use manually. Sorry.
And, you cannot run the VNA as a Windows Service.
You can launch the VNA in the Windows startup folder. In that case, it will launch as soon as a user logs in to the PC.
However, there is no way to pass a port to the application at startup. But, the SFP will remember the HiSLIP port. So, if you connect to the same PXI resource, you should continue to get the same HiSLIP port selection. That means that you can configure the HiSLIP port once, and then you won't need to configure it again.