Author Topic: BOOT UP INTO MAMEWAH (Read 32932 times)

scottyarc2 · « **on:** July 27, 2004, 01:19:51 pm »

I think it is possible to start windows with a shell script (i believe) to run MAMEWAH, so when i turn on my arcade m/c it looks like one, but i have no idea how to do this, any tips!!! also any other tips to remove to winxp entry and exit loading screens??
I am running WinXP Home ed, not sure if this makes any difference.

pointdablame · « **Reply #1 on:** July 27, 2004, 01:26:16 pm »

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=22385

That thread will help you change or get rid of your XP startup screen.

I also like to shut off all the animations and frills on an XP machine, and make it as stripped down as possible. http://www.blackviper.com/ can show you ways to shut off unnecessary windows processes.

To start up in MameWah, the simplest way is to just drop it in the windows startup folder. There may be better ways, but this is the simplest.

scottyarc2 · « **Reply #2 on:** July 28, 2004, 05:04:37 am »

Quote from: pointdablame on July 27, 2004, 01:26:16 pm

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=22385

That thread will help you change or get rid of your XP startup screen.

I also like to shut off all the animations and frills on an XP machine, and make it as stripped down as possible. http://www.blackviper.com/ can show you ways to shut off unnecessary windows processes.

To start up in MameWah, the simplest way is to just drop it in the windows startup folder. There may be better ways, but this is the simplest.

Although not quite what i was after i tried this and for some strange reason it starts mamewah as expected but none of the controlls work or the keyboard buttons!! How strange. I had to press the windows button and run it up again from the start menu!!! Any ideas Y.

Minwah · « **Reply #3 on:** July 28, 2004, 07:27:50 am »

Quote from: scottyarc2 on July 28, 2004, 05:04:37 am

Although not quite what i was after i tried this and for some strange reason it starts mamewah as expected but none of the controlls work or the keyboard buttons!! How strange. I had to press the windows button and run it up again from the start menu!!! Any ideas Y.

Sounds to me like upon startup MAMEWAH lost focus (probably due to another app loading in the background). You can try this by just clicking the mouse (although you can't see it, the Windows cursor is there) - this will give focus back to MW and you should be able to control it.

Get around this by removing anything possible from startup (not neccessarily your Starup folder, run msconfig and you will probably see a whole load of crap)...

Silver · « **Reply #4 on:** July 28, 2004, 08:08:46 am »

If your really keen on the dedicated cab idea and want to strip down the OS bootime/overhead (but don't want DOS/Linux) - try looking at XPLite (or 98Lite) at www.litepc.com - they will strip out loads of stuff you don't need and turn off various advanced windows features. I think you can download a free trial. They've also stripped 9x to sub-10meg image for xtra-quick starts off usb pendrives or CFlash cards...

Or, for the more adventurous, take a look nLite - http://nuhi.msfn.org/ - which is an ongoing (and Free!) program similar to XPlite except it works on XP installations before the install - so you hack out all the crud (and slipstream in service packs and stuff) to create a slimdowned xp installation setup.

Silver · « **Reply #5 on:** July 28, 2004, 08:11:20 am »

oh yeh, just to mention - nLite requires the .Net framework to run (for creation - not on the target XP installation) which is a 20meg download if ya don't have it :-(

PedroSilva · « **Reply #6 on:** July 28, 2004, 06:11:14 pm »

Here's Microsoft's "How to ..." regarding this subject:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnxpesp1/html/tchDifferentShellsForDifferentUsers.asp

Soulcon · « **Reply #7 on:** August 08, 2004, 02:55:11 pm »

Is there anyway this can be put into laymens terms other then put mamewah into startup?

-Soul

kcm3 · « **Reply #8 on:** August 09, 2004, 11:03:42 am »

If what you want is a more "realistic" arcade feel, making mamewah your windows shell would probably be the way to go.

Assuming that can still be done in XP, anyway...

Soulcon · « **Reply #9 on:** August 09, 2004, 11:13:20 am »

I have done search after search and none of the discriptions have been very informative except for the one posted above. However it is so technical I got a bit lost. Is there anyoen at all that could dumb it down a bit for me. please?

Also if anyone knows of a startup,theme,shutdown changer program that ISN'T riddled with spyware and popup programs it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks oh and possibley free

.

Sorry if I seem pushy its just that I spent 3 hours on this last night and all I got to show from it was 165 spyware and popup programs. I was a bit perturbed. I just would really like someone to take the time and walk me through this. My daughters birthday is this friday and I really would like it ironed out before then. Thnaks!

-Soul

-Soul

kcm3 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 09, 2004, 11:35:53 am »

This guy seems to have pretty good instructions for what you want to do on this page (which it looks like he actually found from the forums here):

http://www.upup.us/old/2003_09_01_old.html#106469688462437353

These instructions look pretty straightforward and apply to windows XP.

Soulcon · « **Reply #11 on:** August 09, 2004, 01:28:28 pm »

KCM3 I do appreciate the help I will try this when I get home. However Minwah said it is possible through Mamewah to do a button press combonation to exit mamewah and shutdown the comp. Do you know how to set this up? I read the instructions for Mamewah as well as multiple faqs here but either I am blind or am lost. About anyone has said is that it is possible. If you could just tell me where to go in Mamewah or Mamewah setup to go to set it up so when I press the combo it shuts down the system? Thanks for all your help!

-Soul

Soulcon · « **Reply #12 on:** August 09, 2004, 11:27:47 pm »

It ended up working like a charm Check out Souls Baby cade to see how it is so far

.

-Soul

atog · « **Reply #13 on:** August 10, 2004, 02:02:35 pm »

Anybody know how much time you shave off in XP by going the shell route? Right now I have XP loading, I replaced the XP boot screen with a Spiderman pic I got somewhere. Then Mamewah is in the startup menu so it does load straight up, but you get a few seconds of the WinXP desktop first.

Also, every now and then I get a stupid XP password screen, even though I dont have any password set up. When that comes up I just have to use the trackball and select cancel or continue.

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #14 on:** August 10, 2004, 02:53:41 pm »

heres a list of everything I did to get my comp so you never see windows at all...
I used BootXP to change the bootscreen to a Mame logo, used "Control Userpasswords2" from the run box to set an autologin. Changed the windows shell to Mamewah, set a basic instruction list as the background for the main user, turned off notifications. Now all I have to do is hide the cursor

Halo · « **Reply #15 on:** August 10, 2004, 04:56:18 pm »

Hey DC .. awesome!

Any chance of a blow by blow as to how you did those things, would really help me out!

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #16 on:** August 10, 2004, 06:39:00 pm »

Yea, give me a min to type all that out...

For the bootscreen: Use BootXP found at www.bootxp.net, there may be another program out there to do this that is free. I made BootXP free...

For Autologon: Using the Run Dialog type, "Control Userpasswords2" and uncheck Users must log, when you close out of the window it will ask you to set the default user.

To change the Shell: Open regedit under the user you plan on changing the shell for. Be very carefull in the registry!. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot and if there is a value Shell, change the first 3 letters which read SYS to USR. Then go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and create a value for Shell and put the path to your new shell, in this case Mamewah.

To remove notifications: These are the little windows that come up and say "Loading personal settings" and the like, in regedit go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system and create a DWORD value DisableStatusMessages and set its value to 1.

Change defualt user backgrounds: This is the autoloaded background when windows starts, to change just the color go to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors and change background to whatever color you want, its an RGB value, so black is 0 0 0. To set a picture like the instruction card I did, just create the picture and set the path for Wallpaper in HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop.

Im still lookin into the pointer. If I missed anything just ask

. And remember be carfull in the reg.

atog · « **Reply #17 on:** August 10, 2004, 07:47:17 pm »

DC, could you give some detail on what each step does exactly? I did the password step just now, and hopefully that removes the password check that I get every now and then.

Not sure if I really want to do the other steps just because I dont like messing in the registry if I dont have to, and everything is working well on my cab and I would hate to screw it up.

Halo · « **Reply #18 on:** August 10, 2004, 08:16:25 pm »

What a star .. thanks for taking the time to run through it

TJ

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #19 on:** August 10, 2004, 08:51:24 pm »

Each of them just makes a basic change to the registery, if you would like I can make reg patch files for each of them so you just dbl click it and it will make said change, if you are that uncomfortable with the registry.

sofakng · « **Reply #20 on:** August 10, 2004, 09:33:06 pm »

Hmmm, I'm having some problems...

I followed your directions (as well as the MSDN link that was posted) and I'm pretty experienced with registry editting so I'm not sure what's going on...

At first everything seemed to be working properly but when I logged in as my MAME account, it tried to execute MAMEWAH (as my shell) and it gave me a Run-Time 62 error. Mamewah also gave me the same error whenever I ran it manually as well... (it didn't do this before I made the registry change)...

Now whenever I log in as my MAME account it doesn't even try to run the shell... (or it does but it never actually gets loaded).

Did you have any of these problems?

I'm running Windows XP Pro in case that matters.

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #21 on:** August 10, 2004, 11:44:12 pm »

I think that was happining to me, is that a "read past end of file error"? That means your mamewah config file got screwed up. Just delete it and mamewah will create a new one, its in your files folder called mamewah.cfg.

sofakng · « **Reply #22 on:** August 11, 2004, 07:00:27 am »

Well, I'm getting that error too, but when I do that it doesn't seem like MAMEWAH even loads then....

After you guys turn on your computer and MAMEWAH loads, can you press CTRL-ALT-DEL and tell me if MAMEWAH shows up in your Applications list?

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #23 on:** August 11, 2004, 08:13:19 am »

It does for me...I don't know what to tell ya. :/ maybe reinstall Mamewah?

Soulcon · « **Reply #24 on:** August 11, 2004, 09:04:44 am »

Just redo your registry back to where it was one entry at a time and find out what caused your freeze. That should atleast prove if it was the changes or Mamewah that went kapoot.

But I have a question if I want to do more changes I have to exit mamewah and then CTRL+ALT+DEL. Then I run regedit(Through the start process thingy in CTRL+ALT+DEL), fix what I changed then reboot so I have normal windows. It seems that that everytime I run mamewah as shell it blows out Windows Explorer so I have no start button or programs that I can utilize to change settings. Is there anyway around this?

-Soul

sofakng · « **Reply #25 on:** August 11, 2004, 09:34:33 am »

I'm not sure if this would work, but what about using CTRL-ALT-DEL and then File --> New Task (Run) and then typing in Explorer.exe? I'm not sure if that would work but it's worth a try.

As for my problem... are you guys running XP Pro or Home?

Are you guys using remote desktop at all? I've been using remote desktop to connect to my mame cabinet (to change the settings). I'm thinking that might of screwed something up as well.

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #26 on:** August 11, 2004, 06:12:34 pm »

CTRL-ALT-DELETE to run explorer works perfectly, just type "explorer", no need for the .exe

scottyarc2 · « **Reply #27 on:** August 12, 2004, 06:25:56 pm »

Quote from: DaemonCollector on August 10, 2004, 06:39:00 pm

Yea, give me a min to type all that out...

For the bootscreen: Use BootXP found at www.bootxp.net, there may be another program out there to do this that is free. I made BootXP free...

For Autologon: Using the Run Dialog type, "Control Userpasswords2" and uncheck Users must log, when you close out of the window it will ask you to set the default user.

To change the Shell: Open regedit under the user you plan on changing the shell for. Be very carefull in the registry!. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot and if there is a value Shell, change the first 3 letters which read SYS to USR. Then go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and create a value for Shell and put the path to your new shell, in this case Mamewah.

To remove notifications: These are the little windows that come up and say "Loading personal settings" and the like, in regedit go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system and create a DWORD value DisableStatusMessages and set its value to 1.

Change defualt user backgrounds: This is the autoloaded background when windows starts, to change just the color go to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors and change background to whatever color you want, its an RGB value, so black is 0 0 0. To set a picture like the instruction card I did, just create the picture and set the path for Wallpaper in HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop.

Im still lookin into the pointer. If I missed anything just ask . And remember be carfull in the reg.

I have finally got round to try this out and having no joy!!!
I have manage to setup the two users and the pc boots up into the 'mame user' no problem, but thats it, the shell script is not working. I have created a string called shell mamewah with the value 'c:\Program files\MAMEWAH\mamewah.exe' in the directory 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon'
So why is it not running up auto?

?

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #28 on:** August 12, 2004, 06:34:58 pm »

Did you change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot shell value to read USR:Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

It used to say SYS:Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

scottyarc2 · « **Reply #29 on:** August 12, 2004, 06:40:53 pm »

Quote from: scottyarc2 on August 12, 2004, 06:25:56 pm

Quote from: DaemonCollector on August 10, 2004, 06:39:00 pm
Yea, give me a min to type all that out...

For the bootscreen: Use BootXP found at www.bootxp.net, there may be another program out there to do this that is free. I made BootXP free...

For Autologon: Using the Run Dialog type, "Control Userpasswords2" and uncheck Users must log, when you close out of the window it will ask you to set the default user.

To change the Shell: Open regedit under the user you plan on changing the shell for. Be very carefull in the registry!. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot and if there is a value Shell, change the first 3 letters which read SYS to USR. Then go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and create a value for Shell and put the path to your new shell, in this case Mamewah.

To remove notifications: These are the little windows that come up and say "Loading personal settings" and the like, in regedit go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system and create a DWORD value DisableStatusMessages and set its value to 1.

Change defualt user backgrounds: This is the autoloaded background when windows starts, to change just the color go to HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Colors and change background to whatever color you want, its an RGB value, so black is 0 0 0. To set a picture like the instruction card I did, just create the picture and set the path for Wallpaper in HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop.

Im still lookin into the pointer. If I missed anything just ask . And remember be carfull in the reg.

I have finally got round to try this out and having no joy!!!
I have manage to setup the two users and the pc boots up into the 'mame user' no problem, but thats it, the shell script is not working. I have created a string called shell mamewah with the value 'c:\Program files\MAMEWAH\mamewah.exe' in the directory 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon'
So why is it not running up auto??

OK i now realise the file name has to be 'shell' not ' shell mamewah'. but i am getting these error messages too, think a bit of system restore and start again!!

scottyarc2 · « **Reply #30 on:** August 12, 2004, 06:53:16 pm »

Quote from: DaemonCollector on August 12, 2004, 06:34:58 pm

Did you change HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot shell value to read USR:Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

It used to say SYS:Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

I thought I had, but what does this part do?? as I have seen another link further up and they make no mention of this input??? Im going to retry all this again so i will make sure i do this?? but I am getting the error 62 something or other and then i am frozen out!!!! and have to log out and log onto the other user and system restore!!heeeeeellllllpp!!!

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #31 on:** August 12, 2004, 06:55:13 pm »

This tells windows to ignore the systems shell values and load up a shell value on a user by user basis. If you don't do this it will never even look for the shell value in the current user key.

scottyarc2 · « **Reply #32 on:** August 12, 2004, 07:21:18 pm »

Quote from: DaemonCollector on August 12, 2004, 06:55:13 pm

This tells windows to ignore the systems shell values and load up a shell value on a user by user basis. If you don't do this it will never even look for the shell value in the current user key.

Well tried it all again just to check I had made no errors but the same thing happened. It logged onto to the mame user, hanged for a little bit then nothing just a blank screen with a mamewah 'run-time error 63 input past end of file' whatever that means. Well I am stumped now and not sure what to do???

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #33 on:** August 12, 2004, 09:47:48 pm »

delete your MAMEWAH.cfg File and reboot it. This for somereason seems to screw that file up and it needs to be rewriten. Its in your files directory in the mamewah folder. I had the same prob, that fixed it.

sofakng · « **Reply #34 on:** August 12, 2004, 09:47:49 pm »

Yep, thats the exact same error I'm getting... "Error 62"

sofakng · « **Reply #35 on:** August 13, 2004, 08:29:20 am »

Ok do you guys still see a Windows screen right before it automatically logs in?

When I set "DisableStatusMessages" to 1, I no longer see the text "Loading your settings..." (or whatever) but I still see the background image for that screen.

I'm still having strange Shell/MAMEWAH problems but I'd like to fix this one step at a time (eg. fixing the disablestatusmessages first).

Any help is appriciated.

scottyarc2 · « **Reply #36 on:** August 13, 2004, 05:22:51 pm »

Quote from: DaemonCollector on August 12, 2004, 09:47:48 pm

delete your MAMEWAH.cfg File and reboot it. This for somereason seems to screw that file up and it needs to be rewriten. Its in your files directory in the mamewah folder. I had the same prob, that fixed it.

yep tried that and still get the error 62 message, I checked the files folder and a new mamewah.cfg file was created!!! so that leaves me shafted.........What is going wrong!!!!

scottyarc2 · « **Reply #37 on:** August 13, 2004, 05:59:43 pm »

I have also tried to re-install mamewah but when i re booted it came up with the same error 62 blah blah!! something in those registry settings is conflicting!!

DaemonCollector · « **Reply #38 on:** August 14, 2004, 12:15:08 pm »

Try deleteing everything in your Files directory...thats the only other thing i can think of. None of those reg settings can be causing this.

scottyarc2 · « **Reply #39 on:** August 15, 2004, 07:38:09 am »

Quote from: DaemonCollector on August 14, 2004, 12:15:08 pm

Try deleteing everything in your Files directory...thats the only other thing i can think of. None of those reg settings can be causing this.

I deleted the files folder so it would create a new one but still getting this error!! dont think there is much more we can try??? Thanks for the help so far


Main	Restorations	Software	Audio/Jukebox/MP3	Everything Else	Buy/Sell/Trade
Project Announcements	Monitor/Video	GroovyMAME	Merit/JVL Touchscreen	Meet Up	Retail Vendors
Driving & Racing	Woodworking	Software Support Forums	Consoles	Project Arcade	Reviews
Automated Projects	Artwork	Frontend Support Forums	Pinball	Forum Discussion	Old Boards
Raspberry Pi & Dev Board	controls.dat	Linux	Miscellaneous Arcade	Wiki Discussion	Old Archives
Lightguns	Arcade1Up	Try the site in https mode		Site News


Unread posts \| New Replies \| Recent posts \| Rules \| Chatroom \| Wiki \| File Repository \| RSS \| Submit news