Feature Request: Remote Display Profile Switching via Telegram Bot & Windows Service

[TzachiSh]

Summary

I've built a companion Windows service for DisplayMagician that enables remote display profile switching via a Telegram bot. I'd love to collaborate and contribute this upstream if there's interest.

What it does

• Telegram Bot — Switch display profiles remotely from your phone with inline buttons
• Windows Service — Runs at system level, works even when PC is locked or on the login screen
• Session Lock Auto-Revert — Automatically reverts to a default profile when the PC is locked (event-driven via ServiceBase.OnSessionChange, zero polling)
• User Session Switching — Switch between Windows user accounts (e.g., a dedicated media/gaming user) alongside display profiles
• App Launching — Launch apps (Steam Big Picture, browsers, etc.) as part of the profile switch
• Graceful App Cleanup — Close running apps when switching modes (WM_CLOSE first, then force kill)

Use Case

My setup has a PC connected to both a monitor and a TV. I needed a way to:

1. Switch display profiles remotely (from my phone while on the couch)
2. Automatically revert when I'm done (session lock detection)
3. Switch to a dedicated TV user account with no password for media/gaming
4. Launch Steam Big Picture or other apps as part of the switch

Technical Details

• Built as a .NET 8 Windows service using DisplayMagicianConsole.exe for profile switching
• Uses CreateProcessAsUser to run profile changes in the correct user session from Session 0
• Session lock detection via custom WindowsServiceLifetime subclass (event-driven, not polling)
• User switching via tscon/tsdiscon (no-password accounts automated, password accounts show login screen)
• Security: Telegram user ID whitelist, rate limiting, silent deny for unauthorized users
• Thread-safe with proper locking and ConcurrentDictionary
• Configurable via appsettings.json

Current Implementation

The code is in my fork: https://github.com/TzachiSh/DisplayMagician/tree/develop/DisplayMagicianService

I also made a few fixes to the main DisplayMagician app:

• Fixed crash when Windows notification platform is unavailable (common on Insider builds)
• Fixed NullReferenceException in profile JSON error handler when InnerException is null
• Added DISPLAYMAGICIAN_DATA_PATH env var support for shared profiles across users

Collaboration

Would you be interested in integrating this as part of DisplayMagician? I'm happy to:

• Clean up the code further to match project conventions
• Create a proper PR with separate commits for each feature
• Add the service as an optional component
• Work on any changes you'd like to see

Let me know if this is something you'd consider!

[terrymacdonald]

@TzachiSh firstly thank you for your amazing work on this! Anytime someone provides code it's amazing. And technically impressive too!

I'll have a closer look at this, but I do have to say I'm not that keen on adding a remote Telegram based controller attack surface to the application. The application until now has been designed to be run directly by the end user - they are the one running the game after all. The threat modelling for that situation is lot simpler.

Your suggestion is a big change, and one I'm not sure fits the core purpose of DisplayMagician. I'll have to have a review of your code, and take some time to think about this in more detail.