Background: ClayCentral generally runs as a Windows Service so that it can run automatically in the background on server machines even when no users are logged in. A Windows Service by default runs using a Local System user account. Since Windows Vista and up, Services have been disconnected from the user for security purposes, and the default Windows user generally doesn't have permissions to access global/machine resources such as machine registry settings. All of this may cause the following issues:

If ClayCentral.exe is run as an application directly from Windows Explorer instead of from Windows Services, it cannot detect that ClayCentral is already running as a service due to restricted permissions and will therefore appear twice in the process list.

Solution: Only run ClayCentral from Windows Services.
Note that ClayCentral no longer appears in the Start Menu after version 8.5.0

ClayCentral stores most of its settings in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry (as opposed to HKEY_CURRENT_USER which is per user). If ClayCentral is run as an application in Vista, by default it doesn't have permissions to write to this global registry location but Vista allows it to read the settings using a Virtual Store (backwards compatibility feature).

This means that ClayCentral may have different settings in Vista depending on whether it is run as a service or an application and settings entered as an application will not appear when run as a service.

Solution: Only run ClayCentral from Windows Services.

If services need to interact with the user or display an interface in Vista, they must be programmed specifically for this purpose or else Vista informs the user of service 'messages' via the Interactive Services Detection Service. Although ClayCentral generally doesn't need any interaction with the user, it makes use of several internal forms and controls and Vista thinks it is trying to interact with the user. The message notification may then popup periodically on Vista until ClayCentral is stopped.

Solution: Go to Services and open the Properties of the ClayCentral Service, and make sure the setting “Allow service to interact with desktop” is unchecked.

Note that the Interactive Services Detection Service may also be disabled but this is not recommended since other services may need this.