BOOT UP INTO MAMEWAH

[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