Exit windows from the CP

[Gradius]

I'd like to exit windows 2000 from my CP, using one button or better a combination of two or three buttons. My CP is a psx pad hack connected via USB. I've thought I could use a program I have called af1shutdown, which exits windows when you double click the the program. I could associate a combination of keys to the shortcut to the program, but how to controls this from the control panel?

[DaveMMR]

I dunno but wouldn't your computer shut down by accident a lot (unless you have a dedicated button for it) while just playing a game?

[Gradius]

I would use a combination of one of the fir buttons + start. That's what I use as ui cancel in mame (for quiting emulation). I've been trying with joytokey and it seems to work. I assing for instance shift to one button, and F12 to the other. Then I create a shortcut to a program to exit windows called af1shutdown, and associate the combination of keys shift + F12. The problem is that I don't know if this will have side effects. I mean having joytokey running, and registering shift every time I hit the button during gameplay. Also, I have to test this: I also use the same combination of buttons in mame to exit emulation, so maybe it also tries to exit windows apart from quiting emulation, which would be a problem.

[Minwah]

Many cabinet frontends allow the shutdown of the PC via button(s) or menus.

I'm not 100% sure which others do but I know MAMEWAH does, I bet Dragon King, 3D Arcade & Kymaera too...

You might find JoyToKey ( http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA016823/joytokey/english.html ) helpful too

[paigeoliver]

If you have buttons on your panel that are control and escape then they can be pressed together to pop up the start menu, and from there it is up enter enter.

[Doc-]

  I have a button that is wired directly to the "Power" switch pins on my motherboard.  This is equivalent to the "power" button you use to power up any modern PC.  Its a smaller "momentary" radio shack button and mounted out of the way so it is not hit by accident.

 On startup I just switch the master power strip on and then press this button for a few seconds and it fires up the computer.  When I'm done playing, I just press this button again for a few seconds and it will automatically log off and shut down windows (at least this works under XP).  Once I hear the computer click itself off (at the end of the shut down sequence), I turn off the power strip.

  It works just fine - even if I'm in the front end when I click it - it neatly closes all of the programs and shuts down.

[Industen]

On startup I just switch the master power strip on and then press this button for a few seconds and it fires up the computer.  When I'm done playing, I just press this button again for a few seconds and it will automatically log off and shut down windows (at least this works under XP).  Once I hear the computer click itself off (at the end of the shut down sequence), I turn off the power strip.

I wrote a tutorial on how to do this

http://joelsgadgets.com/computeronpushbutton.html

I suggest booting the computer up with this method with a quick press, but wouldn't recommend holding it for 5 seconds to shut the PC down. I just get a bad feeling when I shut down abruptly like that. While XP seems to handle it better then any other OS it still bothers me. You are better off linking buttons to your control panel or using mamewah to directly shut down the computer.

[Minwah]

I suggest booting the computer up with this method with a quick press, but wouldn't recommend holding it for 5 seconds to shut the PC down. I just get a bad feeling when I shut down abruptly like that. While XP seems to handle it better then any other OS it still bothers me. You are better off linking buttons to your control panel or using mamewah to directly shut down the computer.

It should be fine in XP.  Basically hitting the power button should shut-down the PC just the same as Start > Shut down.  For some reason I too like to close programs before doing so if possible tho...

[ray_slup]

In windows xp you can also have your computer hibernate when you press the power button.
This way you will start up right where you were when you shut down.