Look at the target of the shortcut called "Sage 100 Application Server Startup" that should be added to your start menu.  It should look something like this.  

"C:\Sage\Sage 100 Advanced 2019\MAS90\Home\pvxwin32.exe" -mn lib\_appserv\apssrv.ini lib\_appserv\server -ARG SAGE

The last argument, "SAGE", is the server that the command will start.  So if you open the "Application Server Configuration", you should see a drop down that lists the servers configured.

You don't need to launch the "Application Server Configuration" to start the application server.  Just use the shortcut or command for "Sage 100 Application Server Startup" and it will start the application server.

Also, you can use SysInternals AutoLogin tool (it encrypts the password too) to configure the server to auto login using a dedicated "service" account to run sage 100.  Then throw that "Sage 100 Application Server Startup" shortcut in the service account's StartUp folder along with a shortcut that has the following target.

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

When the server restarts, it will auto login and that will trigger the two shortcuts in the StartUp folder, which will start the application server and lock the user session.

Also, you can use SysInternals AutoLogin tool (it encrypts the password too) to configure the server to auto login using a dedicated "service" account to run sage 100.  Then throw that "Sage 100 Application Server Startup" shortcut in the service account's StartUp folder along with a shortcut that has the following target.

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll, LockWorkStation

When the server restarts, it will auto login and that will trigger the two shortcuts in the StartUp folder, which will start the application server and lock the user session.

Yes, the sysinsterals Autologin tool is great for that. Thanks!

I was not aware that worked with modern versions of Windows (and password encryption).  Good to know!

It works well for this purpose because even if you were to try to use task scheduler to set up a task to execute these commands, if the task is configured to login whether or not the user is logged in, Windows seems to treat it like a service instead of an application.  So I found that this was the best way to get it to actually treat it like an application.  So the AutoLogin tool is a must because it will make sure the user is actually logged in.

Don't recall seeing that before.  Going to have to look into it more.

It's directly on the download page:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autologon