Question that has been asked a million times :)

[Evilpenguin]

Hi there

I have my cabinet up and running and I am using command line mame and mamewah.  My question is whats the easiest way to make windows disappear so to make it more like an arcade cabinet, instead of having to see windows boot screens.  Any help would be appreciated.

Evilpenguin

[EndTwist]

Take a look here:
http://www.infopackets.com/computer+questions/change+the+windows+boot+screen.htm

[sc1103]

BootXP can be used to change your boot image.  In terms of hiding other facets of windows: 
Use Shellon to select your frontend as the shell.

[papaschtroumpf]

can somone that has done this try their hand at a "complete" asnwer that we could sticky and add to as needed?
This is asked way too much!

[DaemonCollector]

Ill go find my old complete answer and elab on it and finish it

[tommy]

They could have the whole first page sticky if they wanted to.

Too many questions out there.

[DaemonCollector]

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... Wink

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.

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.




All these changes where made on a Windows XP Profesional box without any SP's on it, it should work on any XP box though, and with the exception of BootXP should work on any NT System (2000, XP and NT)

[DaemonCollector]

Let me know how that looks and if theres anything else you need to know how to hide

[tommy]

All i need to know is, how do i make my pc boot to my frontend.

[DaemonCollector]

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.