An unattended weather station should start publishing automatically after any interruption — Windows Update, power outage, hardware restart. Achieving this requires configuring GraphWeather to launch at login, enabling automatic reconnection to the station hardware, and optionally adding a watchdog mechanism that restarts the application if it stops unexpectedly. This tutorial covers each configuration step. For the broader publishing workflow context, see Publishing Fundamentals.

Auto-Start with Windows

The simplest approach is a Startup folder shortcut. Place a shortcut to graphweather.exe in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. GraphWeather will launch automatically when the user logs in. For headless systems where nobody logs in interactively, use a Windows Scheduled Task with the "Run whether user is logged on or not" option.

COM Port Reconnection

Enable automatic COM port reconnection in GraphWeather Settings → Station → Connection. With this enabled, GraphWeather attempts to reconnect to the station COM port if the connection drops, rather than displaying an error and waiting for manual intervention. Set a reconnection interval of 30–60 seconds — frequent enough to recover quickly, not so frequent that failed attempts fill the log.

Windows Scheduled Task Watchdog

A Scheduled Task can serve as a watchdog that relaunches GraphWeather if it stops. Configure a task that runs at system startup, repeats every 5 minutes, and launches graphweather.exe. Because Windows will not start a second instance if the application is already running (GraphWeather checks for existing instances at startup), this is safe to leave running continuously — it only has an effect when the application is not running.

Power Recovery Considerations

After a power outage, the sequence is: power restores → computer boots → user session starts (or task scheduler starts) → GraphWeather launches → station reconnects → uploads resume. The data gap during the outage is unavoidable, but the recovery should be automatic. Configure your station's internal logger to continue recording during outages — most La Crosse and Oregon Scientific stations maintain recent observations in battery-backed memory, allowing GraphWeather to retrieve them on reconnection.