What Does the Desktop App Need from Windows for Attachments and the Microphone?
The ABM Service desktop app uses a few things on each PC that a web browser keeps to itself: the programs Windows uses for attached files, the person's own Windows account for files kept in shared folders, their Downloads folder and, for the voice features, the microphone. The ABM Service Desktop machine setup sets up none of these. They are ordinary Windows settings, so check them as you would for any office program.
How does the ABM Service desktop app open attachments on a PC?
In the ABM Service desktop app, Open on a call's or a customer's attachment hands a Word document, a spreadsheet, an e-mail or any other file a browser could only download to the program Windows uses for that kind of file, as the older ABM (Advanced Business Manager) desktop programs did. PDFs and pictures (JPEG, including JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP, WebP and AVIF files) are not handed over: they show on ABM Service's own viewer inside the window.
So each PC needs the programs people expect, such as Word, Excel or Outlook, installed and set as Windows' default for those kinds of file. The ABM Service Desktop machine setup installs no such program and changes no file type's default.
What happens when the ABM Service desktop app hands a file over:
- A program is set for that kind of file — Windows opens the file in it.
- No program is set — Windows itself asks How do you want to open this file?, exactly as it does when the file is double-clicked in File Explorer.
- Windows cannot offer a program either — the attachment's details panel says This PC has no program that opens followed by the file's name, and Use Download to save it instead.
- Windows would not start the program — it says the file's name followed by could not be opened. Try again, or use Download to save it.
- The copy could not be fetched or saved on the PC — it says The file could not be opened. Try again, or use Download to save it., or The file could not be fetched. Please try again.
Download saves any kind of file as it is, so it is the way round while a program is missing.
Where does the ABM Service desktop app keep the attachments it opens and downloads?
An attachment the ABM Service desktop app opens in its own program is a temporary copy, saved in that Windows user's own temporary folder, under %TEMP%\AbmService\open (AbmServiceDev in place of AbmService on the development channel), in a folder for each running copy of the app and a folder of its own for each file opened. A file saved with Download goes straight into that user's Windows Downloads folder, without asking where, and a small list of downloads appears in the window, as in Microsoft Edge.
- The temporary copies are deleted when that copy of the ABM Service desktop app closes completely, for example with Exit on its tray icon beside the clock or to install an update. Closing its windows is not enough, because the app keeps running with its tray icon. A copy still open in its program at that moment, or left behind because the PC was switched off, is removed the next time ABM Service starts for that user, once no program is holding it, so nothing builds up.
- Changes are not saved back. Somebody who edits an opened attachment and saves it in Word or Excel changes the temporary copy only, and ABM Service never reads it back. To keep a changed version they save it with Save As in a folder of their own and attach it again with Attach files on the same call or customer.
- Downloaded files are never deleted by ABM Service: they are the user's to keep.
- Files attached from ABM Service are stored in the company database, not in a folder, so attaching a file needs no folder permission on the PC or on a file server.
Which Windows account does the ABM Service desktop app use to read linked attachments?
The ABM Service desktop app reads a linked attachment, a file ABM keeps only as a link to a folder, as the person signed in to Windows, on their own PC, the way the older ABM desktop programs did. So each person's Windows account needs permission to read the shared folders where your company's linked files are kept. In a web browser it is different: ABM Service Server reads linked files with the server's own Windows account, and only from shared folders.
Where the ABM Service desktop app looks for a linked file:
- A drive letter on the system administrator's Mapped drives list (the Mapped drives screen under Administration) is read through the folder the list gives for it, usually a shared folder written
\\server\share, whatever that letter means on the PC. - Any other drive letter, or a folder on a disk such as C:, is opened as it is on this PC: through the letter this person has mapped, or the PC's own disk. On a terminal server, that means the letters mapped in the person's session on the server.
- A shared folder written
\\server\shareis opened directly.
What a person sees when a linked file will not open in the ABM Service desktop app:
- This file is no longer where it was kept. It may have been moved or deleted. — the file is not there, or that drive letter or folder does not exist on this PC.
- ABM is not allowed to open the folder this file is kept in. Your system administrator can give ABM access to that folder. — in the desktop app, it is that person's own Windows account that needs permission to read the folder.
- The folder this file is kept in could not be reached. The computer it is on may be switched off — try again later. — the folder, or the computer it is on, could not be reached, or did not answer within about eight seconds.
- This file cannot be opened: the place it was kept is not a valid location. — the link itself is not a place Windows can open; this is shown before anybody presses Open.
Test on the Mapped drives screen, pressed in the desktop app, tries a shared folder as the person pressing it, on that PC, not as the server.
Does the ABM Service desktop app use the microphone, and will it ask for permission?
The ABM Service desktop app uses the microphone only for the voice features, and never asks for it: the app allows the microphone itself for ABM Service's own screens, so no permission question appears in its windows. The voice features are Voice note on the call screen, which writes what a person says into the call's details, and Talk here under Log by voice on the customer screen, which logs a call by talking to an AI agent. Both work only where your company has the AI features switched on for that person.
The app allows exactly two things to its own screens without asking: reading the clipboard, so that pasting into a call's documents works, and the microphone. Anything else a page could ask for, such as the camera, the location or notifications, is refused without a question.
Windows' own privacy switches still apply. In Windows Settings, under Privacy & security, then Microphone, both Microphone access and Let desktop apps access your microphone must be on. When they are not, Voice note shows a card titled Windows is blocking the microphone with those steps. In the desktop app a refused microphone is always Windows' doing, never the app's, and the card's link to Settings does not open from the desktop app, so open Settings from the Start menu. If both switches are on, another program may be holding the microphone.
The AI features, voice included, connect from each PC to the AI service on the internet, not through ABM Service Server, so a PC whose firewall allows only the update address can use ABM Service but not those features. The system administrator can see their addresses on the AI agents screen.
Why does the ABM Service desktop app find no microphone over Remote Desktop?
On a terminal server, or any PC used over Remote Desktop, the microphone on the person's own desk reaches the ABM Service desktop app only if their Remote Desktop connection records from it. In Remote Desktop Connection, open Local Resources, then Remote audio, then Settings, and choose Record from this computer.
Without that, Voice note in the ABM Service desktop app shows a card titled No microphone found, which says the same thing about Remote Desktop, says it notices as soon as a microphone is plugged in, and has a Check again button. The same card appears on a PC that simply has no microphone or headset connected.
What does desktop.log record about attachments, downloads and permissions?
Each Windows user's desktop.log, in %LocalAppData%\DP Systems\ABM Service (ABM Service Development on the development channel), has a line for every attachment the ABM Service desktop app hands to a program, every download and every permission it refuses. So when somebody says Open or Download "did nothing", the answer is in that file.
- opened followed by the file's name and in its own program — Windows started the program.
- no program is registered for the file, ending Windows was asked which to use — Windows showed its own question.
- could not open followed by the attachment and in its own program, no program could open or could not be started — what went wrong, with the reason.
- download followed by where the file was saved, then download completed with its size, or the reason it stopped.
- refused followed by what a page asked for, such as Camera — the app turned it down.
- open-file: folder left for the next sweep — a copy was still open in its program when the app closed; it is removed at the next start.