Can't get TC7 to run in the interactive desktop when using the COM interfaces

I'm writing an automated regression testing tool which is supposed to run TestComplete (version 7.20.562.5) in a virtual machine. Currently I'm trying to take the following steps:

- Start the virtual machine and wait for it to connect to the LAN

- Copy the product installer + PDB files to the virtual machine

- Install the product + PDB files

- Copy the test suite to the virtual machine

- Connect to the TestComplete COM server and run the test suite

The idea behind this was that we could run the tests automatically when ever we create a new build. (normally every night). The problem lies in the fact that our tests are UI tests which need to be able to click on dialog boxes etc. It turns out that the only way to do that is to run the tests from the interactive login.

So now we have an interactive user that automatically logs on to the virtual machine when it starts. Unfortunately this still doesn't solve the problem because for some reason the TC COM server doesn't run as the interactive user, even though the code that calls into the COM server is running as that user! So in the end our tests still fail because TC runs in the wrong session.

Now the questions are:

- Is there any way to get TC to run in the interactive session. If possible through the COM interface, but I'll take a command line option as well

- If I need to run through the command line then is there a way to find out if the tests have passed or not (i.e. is there an exit code for test complete etc.) I'd prefer to not have to parse the output files

- Is there ANY documentation for this use case (automatic running of UI tests). Unfortunately all the 'cool' case studies / examples etc. are completely useless because most them assume a user will start the tests, which is something we can't do :(

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

Patrick