Comparison of PiP Child Session and Virtual Desktop technologies for running attended automations.

Depending on your environment, type of automations, and applications used, you can choose one of the two available PiP technologies.

PiP - Child Session is best suited for complex automations that make use of hardware events and image-based automation, while PiP - Virtual Desktop provides a faster process start time and can run on more Windows operating systems.

If both PiP technologies are compatible with your environment and automations, PiP - Virtual Desktop is recommended as it is faster and uses less resources to start the automation. You can also keep a PiP - Child Session instance open throughout the day to achieve similar performance when starting an automation.

The main differences are presented below:

¹ Only works the first time a PiP session is spawned. After that, the PiP session can be authenticated only using username and password until the next restart of the machine.

² More information on how PiP - Child Session works with VPN can be found here.

¹ UIAutomation Activities v22.4 and above is required for Edge/Chrome browser automation when using PiP - Virtual Desktop.

² These input methods may not work on all applications. Check the Input methods table for the overall compatibility with applications.

New Desktop PiP and multiple monitors: In New Desktop (Virtual Desktop) mode, the PiP preview shows only the primary monitor. Application windows opened on a secondary monitor are not shown in the preview (they appear as a black screen); the automation still runs and interacts with those windows normally. For all automation windows to appear in the preview, they must be on the primary monitor, or a single-monitor configuration must be used.