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HIDING WINDOWS 7 - 2015 TUTORIAL - COMPLETE

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Phreakwars:
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.

JohnDoh:
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.

dchase:

--- Quote from: clhug on February 03, 2021, 01:59:42 pm ---
--- Quote from: formula409 on July 08, 2020, 11:34:11 am ---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.

--- End quote ---
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!

--- End quote ---

Zebidee:
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

--- End quote ---

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. 

Zebidee:
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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