BOOT UP INTO MAMEWAH

[scottyarc2]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

-Soul

[kcm3]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

-Soul

[atog]

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]

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]

Hey DC .. awesome!

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

[DaemonCollector]

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]

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]

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

TJ

[DaemonCollector]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[Soulcon]

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]

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]

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

[scottyarc2]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[sofakng]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[DaemonCollector]

shoot Minwah a pm and see if he can help you out...theres nothin else I can think of.

[Minwah]

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!!!!

First make sure you don't have MAMEWAH in your Startup as well as shell...If not, then get rid of MAMEWAH as your shell and just stick it in Startup instead.  Also, delete your \mamewah\files folder and start again.

Unfortunately there seem to be a few systems which just don't like MAMEWAH as a shell - I've put this down to oddities in system specific setups  

The next release uses a different config file system, which I hope will be less prone to screwing up - give it a try when it's released

[sofakng]

Minwah,

I also have a problem when using mamewah as my shell.  I've tried just about everything but it just refuses to work as a shell.  When I set it to my shell, sometimes I will get error 62's (even after re-installing and deleting all .cfg files) but sometimes windows will bootup and just not load *anything*.  It will just display an empty screen.

However, mamewah DOES work if I drop it into my startup folder though.

It's very strange.... I can make calc.exe (windows calculator) my shell and it works fine but mamewah just doesn't want to work as my shell...

For those having problems using mamewah for your shell, are you running XP Pro or Home?  

For those that DON'T have problems, are you running XP Pro or Home?

[Minwah]

For those having problems using mamewah for your shell, are you running XP Pro or Home?  

For those that DON'T have problems, are you running XP Pro or Home?

Good questions.  Might explain why only some people have difficulty...I haven't actually tried it on my machine (XP Home) yet, maybe soon...

[sofakng]

I'm more specifically wondering if anybody running XP Pro has this working...  I'd be more than happy to switch from XP Pro to XP Home, but I'd like some sort of confirmation first

[DaemonCollector]

I am running XP Pro...but i just realized something, I was having trouble with this after installing SP1...so I reinstalled windows. Do you have SP1?

[sofakng]

Yeah, I have SP1 installed...

[DaemonCollector]

That may be screwing with these settings...I havn't tested any of this on an SP1 System

[sofakng]

Huh?

I'm using Windows XP SP1 and I'm having the same problems as you.  I haven't tested this on a *NON* SP1 system (or a XP Home system).

Are you saying SP1 might be screwing things up?

[DaemonCollector]

Yea, it made some weird changes, everything I listed is for a pre SP1 system. Not sure about if it will work on an upgraded one. That still might not be the problem though.

[jub3i]

I'm running XP Pro with SP1 and it works fine for me.  I had some problems at first with it making MAMEWAH the shell for everyone.  I realized that i needed to change the shell under HKEY_CURRENT_USER instead of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.  But to answer your question about Pro and SP1, it works fine for me.

[slycrel]

  FWIW, I'm running win98 and I've encountered this same error multiple times, both when I'm using it as a shell and when I'm not.  It's bad enough that I keep a current backup of my MAMEWAH folder so that I can just trash it if the real one starts getting errors.  Soemtimes starting from scratch is the only way to get things working again.

  Minwah, if I pin down what's causing this I'll let you know.  Though it sounds like you're rewriting that code anyhow.

[Fuzzguitar]

Just to help with figuring things out Minwah I couldn't get it to work as a shell on XP and I don't have SP1.

But it was so long ago, there's a chance I may have left a shortcut in the startup also. Might try again soon to see.

Is it worth it making it a shell? Most PC's boot up so quick now as Mame machines and if you make the desktop black, hide icons, taskbar invisible etc then the 1 or 2 seconds you see the desktop is like nothing.

Maybe I just think that because I failed to get it to work!

[PedroSilva]

I have XP Pro with service pack1 and all the updates till +- 2 mounths ago.
Mamewah is my shell (set it up using microsoft's instructions see my early post on this tread).

I have no problems at all, except for the f****** mouse cursor that I can't find a way to remove on startup / shutdown ...  

By the way ... mp3 files play lovely as a bg music ...  

I you need any help or have any questions feel free ...
 

[DaemonCollector]

hmm, i wonder what the problem with those certain peoples computers are...*scratches head*

[DaemonCollector]

Figured out how to get a 1-Px cursor to display on startup. If anyone cares to know, post here and I'll type it out.

[Zombie13UK]

Yes please! I'd be interested to know how to make the cursor 1x1 pixel. I haven't manually altered a mouse pointer since I had my Amiga 500... memories... 

[jcrouse]

Another option, I'm guessing would be to create your own desktop theme and use the transparent cursor that comes with the latest beta distro of MameWAH as the default cursor.

John

[lucindrea]

useing thems doesnt do it for the mouse , you still get that dumb pointer between the "starting windows" screen ( commonly replaced by a mame screen ) and the front end it's self .. thing sits their for like 15 seconds on my cab and i would love to be rid of it.

[sofakng]

I've replaced the default cursor with the transparent one from Mamewah but like everybody else says, the default windows cursor still shows up for several seconds before Mamewah is loaded...

Also, does anybody have a nice windows wallpaper that says "MAME is now loading..." (or MAMEWAH is now loading...")?  I just have my background set to pure black, which works fine, but seeing as how my bootscreen says "MAME is now loading..." I'd like the desktop wallpaper to be the same...

[Minwah]

My personal opinion is that XP is such a pain to hide everything Windows-like on startup, it is easier to come up with a hardware solution for turning the monitor on after the PC has booted into the FE...that is what I plan to do

[DaemonCollector]

Just saw taht people need the way to get rid of the startup cursor now, if anyone still needs this, let me know

[rerstad]

If you know how to get rid of the startup cursor, please post it.  Thanks.

[DaemonCollector]

To get rid of the starting cursor in windows XP Open Regedit, got the HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\ Create a key called "Cursors" and within this key create new string values as shown in the attached screenshot, but point them to whatever cursor you want.

[D_BIZZZZ]

Hi,

Please can someone tell me how I can run mamewah to automatically launch with a rom/game instead of having to select it first from the menu.

Basically I would like to power up the machine into my fav ROM and then escape back to menu if I wanted to switch to another ?

Is it possible, perhaps a command line switch of some kind ?

Any help would be most appreciated.

DB

[Bill Mote]

I'm pretty sure I've followed these instructions to the letter, but upon boot I get a black screen with the cursor.  If I open task manager there is *nothing* running.  I have cut-and-pasted the value for "Shell" I entered under HKCU->blah-blah-blah and MameWAH runs when I do that.

I did change the SYS to USR.  Of course I already have it set to login automagically.  As previously noted by someone else I too can put calc.exe in as my shell and it works.  I even added c:\mamewah; to the "path" environment variable in case it was an issue with the length of the shell value.  I changed the shell value to mamewah.exe.  I can do a "start->run->mamewah" and it works, but still doesn't work as the shell.

I just pulled this from the log.  It is repeated OVER and OVER and OVER ...

7/14/2005 10:58:16 PM Resolution 800x600 not available

My system is set to 800x600x32bpp.  Go figure.

I still see the blue-on-blue welcome screen while the XP music plays both at startup and shutdown.  How do I get rid of those?  I disabled the status messages as instructed, but that doesn't ditch those screens.  I'm NOT talking about the boot screen.  That's my next task.

[DaemonCollector]

Mamewah won't work as shell unless the Welcome screen is disabled, go to control panel, users, and uncheck use welcome screen. Take 2 and call me in the morning.

[richms]

Has anyone being sucessful in eliminating all traces of windows starting up on an XP machine, with the user that is logging in being a domain user? I already have one set up here that has the username and password of mp3 that loads up a user with foobar2000 and a few other needed things for playing music and a read only access to the media shares, I would like to set something up similar for mame, so that I dont have to put anything on the cab other then windows and join it to the domain.

Its just all the stuff I have seen with respect to automatically logging users on is for a local, not domain user, so not really suitable.

[DaemonCollector]

Found this after a little googling...no idea if it works...

How To Enable Automatic Logon in Windows 2000/XP Pro With a Domain System

A: To enable auto  logon in Windows 2000/XP with a domain system, you need to edit the registry. Start Regedt32.exe and locate the following registry key:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon; Enter your domain name, account name, and password, using the following values : DefaultDomainName, DefaultUserName, and DefaultPassword. (NOTE: The DefaultDomainName and DefaultUserName values may already exist.) .

If the DefaultPassword value does not exist, create it. To do so: On the Edit menu, click Add Value; In the Value Name box, type DefaultPassword; In the Data Type box, click REG_SZ.; Click OK; In the String Editor box, type your password. Click OK and save your changes. (NOTE: If no DefaultPassword string is specified, Windows automatically changes the value of the AutoAdminLogon key from 1 (true) to 0 (false). This disables the AutoAdminLogon feature. This behavior also occurs if the DefaultPassword string is specified but the password is left blank or null.)

   1. On the Edit menu, click Add Value. Type AutoAdminLogon in the Value Name box. Click REG_SZ in the Data Type box. Enter 1 in the String box. Save your changes.
   2. Quit Regedt32.exe.
   3. Shut down Windows and turn off the computer.
   4. Restart your computer and Windows 2000. You should be able to log on automatically now.

[D5A1AC]

I don't know if this will help or not, I think it might be slightly different to the original strategy mentioned on this thread, but:

Getting a Front-end to run as a shell in XP and start with no user intervention:

You cannot do this if your computer is part of a domain. It must only be part of a workgroup.

1) Create a user that will be the auto-login user. (User should have admin rights at this time)
   
2) Configure XP to automate the logon process if your computer is not part of a domain.

   > Click Start, click Run, and type control userpasswords2.
   > Clear the Users must enter a username and password to use this computer check box.
   > Click Apply.
   > Enter the user name and password you wish to automatically log on with, and then          click OK.
   > Click OK again and you're all done.

3) Setup your Front End the way you want it.
   > Open regedit and browse to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows          NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon"
     > Look for a string entry called 'Shell'. If it is not there, create a string entry and name          it 'Shell'. Set the value of this entry to the name and location of your Front-end.          For Mamewah, the shell entry may be "C:\Mamewah\Mamewah.exe" or             wherever your Mamewah executable is located. For explorer, the entry is simply          "explorer.exe".
       > Log out as the auto-login user and log back in as another user with administrative          rights.
       > Change the auto-login user to a standard user. (This way, people don't have more          access than you want them to have.)



B) Disabling the Welcome screen and startup / shutdown messages

Mamewah may become hidden behind the welcome screen, so the welcome screen should be disabled.
 1) Change from the default windows XP welcome screen to the older style by going to Control    Panels>User Accounts>Change the way users logon or off. Deselect the "Use Welcome    Screen" checkbox.

To get disable the startup and shutdown messages via regedit:

2) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Policies>System
   If there's a DisableStatusMessages dword there, change it to 1, otherwise add it and change    it to 1.

C) Change the boot screen

1) Install