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Author Topic: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE  (Read 82903 times)

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markronz

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #40 on: February 04, 2017, 12:41:33 am »
So the title of this post says "WINDOWS 7 - 2015"  Does that mean it also covers Windows 10?  If not, is there a similar guide for Windows 10 somewhere?  This one looks very well written but the text of it only mentioned Windows 7 so I wasn't sure.   Anyone know?

clhug

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #41 on: February 04, 2017, 10:07:52 am »
Some stuff from this applies to Win 10, but a lot doesn't.  I've not yet figured out how to do some things in Win 10.

rablack97

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #42 on: February 04, 2017, 07:08:49 pm »
Correct, there isn't a complete win10 tutorial for hiding the OS that I have seen.

This one does not cover windows 10.

keilmillerjr

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #43 on: February 14, 2017, 11:45:06 pm »
Correct, there isn't a complete win10 tutorial for hiding the OS that I have seen.

This one does not cover windows 10.

I have windows 10 almost completely hidden. Pm me guys if you want me to write a tutorial.

markronz

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #44 on: February 15, 2017, 12:13:55 am »
I would love to see a guide written up!

rablack97

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #45 on: February 20, 2017, 01:56:24 pm »
Same here any update

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #46 on: February 21, 2017, 11:38:45 am »
Ok sorry to start this thread again , I m in the middle of setting up my arcade and I followed the steps and it is working , however I may have jumped the gun and I need my desktop back , which part restores the desktop back to normal so that I can continue tweaking other software ?

Thanks


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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #47 on: February 21, 2017, 11:44:19 am »
Instant sheller

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DTxAg

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #48 on: September 03, 2017, 08:13:32 pm »
This seems to be a good thread for this question.

I have used Windows 7 Boot Updater to change the Windows 7 boot screen, and when the computer is hooked up to an LCD TV you can see the new boot screen.

When I hook the computer up to my WG D9200, it says "Out of Range" during the boot sequence and you can't see anything until Windows completely loads. Even if I use the nobootgui option when booting, it still says out of range. If I try to use the "base video" option in msconfig, it boots up to a black screen that doesn't work.

Any idea how to force Windows to display the boot screen?

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #49 on: September 21, 2017, 04:51:27 pm »
So I am still getting the "Welcome" Screen with the background and "Shutting Down" . Which part did I not remove? Everything else is removed.

rablack97

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #50 on: September 21, 2017, 04:55:02 pm »
did you remember to hit the green arrow to compile it after you made the changes, and did you run the mcbuilder?

Also, turn off windows updates, new updates will overlay your work, and cause things to re-appear.

If you still have the welcome you did something wrong with Windows 7 Logon Background changer.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2017, 04:59:04 pm by rablack97 »

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #51 on: December 20, 2017, 01:26:30 pm »
I did not run that, That fixed it . Thank you.


Instant sheller

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #52 on: February 25, 2018, 11:12:50 am »
    For those of you that are using Calamity's CRT Emu drivers, that 'Test Mode' watermark in the bottom right hand corner bugged me badly enough to look for a way to get rid of it. Here is the file and what entries you must edit:

    File:  C:\Windows\System32\en-US\user32.dll.mui
    String Table:
45 : 1033
--715,    "%wsWindows %ws"
--716,    "%ws Build %ws"

47 : 1033

--738,    "Test Mode"[/list]

You can remove what is in quotes, or you can edit the text to customize/brand your emulation cab. But you can't turn off TEST MODE; that kills Calamity's drivers. Trust if you have made it thus far, you can figure out how to do the rest of the steps w/Resource Hacker and mcbuilder.
When you find great deals on Craigslist for CRT based cabs, exuberance :laugh2: can be a bad thing!


Current Status of Cabs:  2-of-11 (and counting) working as desired  :applaud: :applaud:/:banghead: :banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:

G0nz0

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #53 on: November 11, 2018, 07:13:21 pm »
Is the dropbox files still available? I don't see a link.


TIA

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #54 on: November 11, 2018, 07:32:56 pm »
Is the dropbox files still available? I don't see a link.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, it's in the OP, but the text color makes the link hard to identify.

Click on the white "Tutorial Tools" text . . .
To save you some time, I have provided a Dropbox link which will have all of the basic tools/files to follow the tutorial.

Tutorial Tools

. . . or this link.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h1sbj3ntab9d9ec/Hide%20Windows%207%20Files.rar?dl=0


Scott

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #55 on: November 03, 2019, 05:38:33 am »
The link to the tutorial files is broken. Could someone please mirror it?

Mark Norville

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #56 on: November 04, 2019, 11:43:51 am »
I would avoid doing this like the plague, in other words avoid it at all costs.

The reason being is that I done this on my home cinema PC I think it was, or it might have been my arcade PC. I wanted to exit out and go to the operating system so that I could make changes. To my horror I could not exit to the operating system, so I was starting to panic, I eventually got back into my system and removed the instant sheller and would not recommend using one, unless you have your system 100% configured, but even then I would not recommend it.

If you want to do a poor mans version of this, change the windows boot screen, and have your desktop clear of icons and add whatever you want in your start up folder.

So you boot up, and HyperSpin loads straight away, on an SSD you will hardly notice the load time. At least this way you can still access your PC at any time.

Just my two pennies worth, it works for some people but not others, especially not if you want to make changes, especially for two seconds of loading time.

Regards

Mark

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #57 on: November 04, 2019, 12:59:39 pm »
I would avoid doing this like the plague, in other words avoid it at all costs.

The reason being is that I done this on my home cinema PC I think it was, or it might have been my arcade PC. I wanted to exit out and go to the operating system so that I could make changes. To my horror I could not exit to the operating system, so I was starting to panic, I eventually got back into my system and removed the instant sheller and would not recommend using one, unless you have your system 100% configured, but even then I would not recommend it.

If you want to do a poor mans version of this, change the windows boot screen, and have your desktop clear of icons and add whatever you want in your start up folder.

So you boot up, and HyperSpin loads straight away, on an SSD you will hardly notice the load time. At least this way you can still access your PC at any time.

Just my two pennies worth, it works for some people but not others, especially not if you want to make changes, especially for two seconds of loading time.

Regards

Mark

Hmm....did you try running Explorer.exe when you brought up task manager? I was shelled like this and anytime I needed to perform some maintenance here or there I just ran Explorer and your desktop should show right up.

Mark Norville

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #58 on: November 04, 2019, 04:13:03 pm »
I had to insert my windows DVD in and got into the operating system that way, I never used this guide, I cannot remember what website I done the sheller from, but it was more hassle than it was worth for me. I was expecting that it would exit the program and then want to load up the OS, sadly was not the case, I could not access anything, I think all what I had was a dead screen and keyboard etc would not work.

I was lucky that I managed to get back in without formatting, but someone with less PC knowledge might have struggled.

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #59 on: January 27, 2020, 07:44:33 am »

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #60 on: July 08, 2020, 11:34:11 am »
I would avoid doing this like the plague, in other words avoid it at all costs.

The reason being is that I done this on my home cinema PC I think it was, or it might have been my arcade PC. I wanted to exit out and go to the operating system so that I could make changes. To my horror I could not exit to the operating system, so I was starting to panic, I eventually got back into my system and removed the instant sheller and would not recommend using one, unless you have your system 100% configured, but even then I would not recommend it.

If you want to do a poor mans version of this, change the windows boot screen, and have your desktop clear of icons and add whatever you want in your start up folder.

So you boot up, and HyperSpin loads straight away, on an SSD you will hardly notice the load time. At least this way you can still access your PC at any time.

Just my two pennies worth, it works for some people but not others, especially not if you want to make changes, especially for two seconds of loading time.

Regards

Mark

That's why, at this point, you're better off just using Windows 10. It's incredibly easy to hide everything in Windows 10, and easy to revert it back to normal behavior.

clhug

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #61 on: February 03, 2021, 01:59:42 pm »
That's why, at this point, you're better off just using Windows 10. It's incredibly easy to hide everything in Windows 10, and easy to revert it back to normal behavior.
Can you elaborate?  HOW do you hide things in Windows 10?  I have not been able to figure it out, and I can't find a guide anywhere.  I AM using Win 10 for my MAME PC, but I still see the standard Win 10 boot screen.  I've not been able to find a way to hide or replace it.  Also, there is no startup or shutdown sounds in Win 10.  I found a workaround for startup sounds by using a scheduled task on startup to play a sound, but I can't find any such workaround for shutdown sounds.  (I have fun arcade sounds for both startup and shutdown on my previous MAME PCs up until Win 10.)

Thanks!

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #62 on: February 03, 2021, 05:09:37 pm »
I had to insert my windows DVD in and got into the operating system that way, I never used this guide, I cannot remember what website I done the sheller from, but it was more hassle than it was worth for me. I was expecting that it would exit the program and then want to load up the OS, sadly was not the case, I could not access anything, I think all what I had was a dead screen and keyboard etc would not work.

I was lucky that I managed to get back in without formatting, but someone with less PC knowledge might have struggled.
I just use Team Viewer. Then you can even see the mouse if you have it hidden on the cab and can send key combos like Ctrl+alt+del or windows key. Have almost all my cabs running 7, never had issue getting into the OS.

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #63 on: May 22, 2022, 05:08:36 pm »
thanks for the tutorial
« Last Edit: May 23, 2022, 12:44:23 am by JohnDoh »

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #64 on: June 03, 2022, 01:06:38 am »
Thx for this guide! I just did all steps and it's all good except for one thing. I don't know why but when booting or shutting down the language bar icon appears in the upper left corner. Never saw this before. It wasn't there before I started to do the steps for hiding the OS.
Anyone knows how to hide it ?

Thanks  :)
« Last Edit: June 03, 2022, 01:33:36 am by JohnDoh »

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #65 on: June 03, 2022, 03:48:04 pm »
You'll need to go into the right hand corner, right click on it, and disable it. I've seen this happen many times as well, slight annoyance, but easy fix. One thing I recommend doing before applying the hacks is do all of your updating and OS optimizing first. That language bar is one of those things that comes up that needs dealt with, but after all that, Windows 7x64 is hands down the best OS for arcade cabs.
« Last Edit: June 03, 2022, 03:50:48 pm by Phreakwars »

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #66 on: June 04, 2022, 02:22:36 am »
I think the ricght click and disable is only an option in the taskbar, but the problem I had was different as it was on the opposite end of the display in the upper left corner.
Anyway here is the solution if anyone ever needs it :

When you choose regional and language settings for your computer,
such as your default input language or keyboard layout, you can apply those settings to special
accounts in Windows called reserved accounts. Reserved accounts include the default
user account and the system accounts. These accounts are described below.

1, Open control panel Regions and Language

2, Click the Administrative tab, and then click
Copy settings. If
you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password
or provide confirmation.

3, Do one of the following:


To copy the current settings to the default user account, select
the New user accounts check box. The default account is
used as a template for creating new user accounts. This setting allows
administrators to set the default format, keyboard layout, and display language
for new users. Any user account created on the computer after the settings have
been copied to the default user account will have these settings applied.
Existing user accounts aren't affected.

To copy the current settings to the Welcome Screen and other system accounts (local system, local service, and network
service), select the Welcome screen and system accounts
check box. The system accounts are special accounts used by Windows‌ services
This setting allows administrators to specify a display language and keyboard
layout for the Welcome screen. It also sets the display language for users who
haven't specified a display language.

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #67 on: July 12, 2022, 09:47:26 pm »
That's why, at this point, you're better off just using Windows 10. It's incredibly easy to hide everything in Windows 10, and easy to revert it back to normal behavior.
Can you elaborate?  HOW do you hide things in Windows 10?  I have not been able to figure it out, and I can't find a guide anywhere.  I AM using Win 10 for my MAME PC, but I still see the standard Win 10 boot screen.  I've not been able to find a way to hide or replace it.  Also, there is no startup or shutdown sounds in Win 10.  I found a workaround for startup sounds by using a scheduled task on startup to play a sound, but I can't find any such workaround for shutdown sounds.  (I have fun arcade sounds for both startup and shutdown on my previous MAME PCs up until Win 10.)

Thanks!

-Banned-

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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #68 on: April 01, 2023, 05:52:54 am »
Thanks for the guide! I tried to follow the tips in the original post, as much as I could.

Unfortunately I discovered some issues.

First off, the Windows 7 Boot Updater didn't seem to work properly on my system (Win 7x64). Nothing I did seemed to work for it. All changes made were gone with the next boot. The animation and (c) Microsoft persisted. The only exception was I managed to somehow remove the "Starting Windows" text. I did download the latest version, but no luck.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with Thai language being installed on my system (but that's more for the fonts, still running primarily EN-US). In any case the whole issue is moot because I've decided to boot with "no GUI boot" enabled via Win+R (Run) then "MSconfig".

Secondly, I had problems with the instantsheller, because I am using Attract Mode for a frontend. The instasheller demands an executable with a *.exe only and without flexibility, no parameters, which (for whatever reason) meant Attract Mode wasn't loading any configuration files. I got around it by hacking the registry instead. Navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

and at the 'Shell' key entry, replace "explorer.exe" with "c:\attract\attract.exe -c c:\attract". This tells Attract Mode where the working directory and config files are! This worked well, a success.

However, for a number of reasons, I decided that I wanted to keep my explorer/desktop options open. So, I reverted "shelling" the AM frontend and went back to traditional, loading explorer.exe as normal, and then launching AM from the Startup folder (and pinned it to the Start Bar for good measure).

You can access the Startup folder by Win+R (run) then type "shell:startup". This opens the startup folder where you can place shortcuts (and other cool stuff like autohotkey scripts). Drop in shortcuts to the programs you want to automatically run at startup there.

I placed a shortcut to a batch file (AM.bat, in the c:\attract directory, more on that below) on my desktop (right-click on file, choose "send to desktop"), to launch Attract Mode. This shortcut has a simple "shortcut key" combo (Ctrl+Alt+1, do this by right-clicking on the shortcut to edit it's properties). This makes it easy to launch Attract Mode from desktop (or arcade cab) later. I then copied that shortcut into the Startup folder.

Next problem, the taskbar wanted to play up. Every time I booted into AM, the taskbar would sneakily come up, right at the end, and "steal focus" away from AM. Even when hidden, the very top of the taskbar would stick up and steal focus. To get focus back to AM I had to Alt-Tab, not very slick.

I tried using Shybar, but it didn't work. Problem persisted.

Eventually I tamed the taskbar using nircmd.exe (https://nircmd.nirsoft.net/), a powerful but light command line utility. It provides some great tools to help launch programs, bring them to the front or hide them, including the taskbar. My batch file (AM.bat), which lives in the c:\attract directory, ended up looking like this:

Quote
@ECHO OFF
cd c:\attract
nircmd.exe exec show "attract.exe -c c:\attract"
nircmd.exe win focus process attract.exe
nircmd.exe win settopmost process attract.exe 1
nircmd.exe win hide class Shell_Traywnd
exit

These commands launch AM, force windows to focus on it, makes it as the top process, and finally hides the taskbar. I'm not sure if all of the commands above were 100% necessary, maybe just the first and the last one ("nircmd.exe win hide class Shell_Traywnd"), as that seemed to settle everything down.

Setup like this, with a clean desktop, is almost like having the frontend as a shell. It leaves me some more flexibility to fiddle with stuff, I can always shell it later when I'm done. 



« Last Edit: April 01, 2023, 06:04:32 am by Zebidee »
Check out my completed projects!


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Re: HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE
« Reply #69 on: April 14, 2023, 01:43:14 am »
The taskbar started mysteriously stealing focus again. I could boot into Attract-Mode and see it onscreen, but could see top bit of taskbar at bottom. Keyboard controls would not work until I alt-tabbed back to AM.

I guessed that something was automatically starting and making the taskbar grab focus.

Shybar did nothing to help (or hinder), so I uninstalled it.
Uninstalled any programs that looked non-essential.
I edited the notification area properties and set everything to hide, not show.
All to no avail.

Then I started going through the local services (settings, services) and, one by one, either disabled or prevented automatic startup for anything that seemed non-essential, then restarted.

Finally I got lucky with a network speed shaping application called "cFosSpeed System Service", which is a mainboard utility bundled and installed with other system software and drivers. I think it was forcing an icon onto the notification area of the toolbar, despite my settings. I set it to "manual" start instead of "automatic". In any case, it is not essential, especially as this computer will rarely (if ever) see another network, and I can always just enable it again.

So, taskbar problem solved without needing any extra software or starting attract-mode as a shell.
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