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Author Topic: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot  (Read 69982 times)

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exiges

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There have been alot of threads on here posted by some very knowledgeable people about how to best hide XP from the boot up screens, and how to auto login, etc. but there doesn't seem to be a single start-to-finish post on the subject.  Much of what we want done to XP can be sorted by a single application by Tom Spiers here

So here goes, first covering the hiding of XP, then a bit about speeding it all up.  Included are:

1. Changing/removing the boot screen
2. Removing the Welcome screen
3. Removing the "Loading settings" and other startup messages
4. Change the login background color
5. Turn-off popup balloons
6. Loading straight to Mamewah (and exiting to Explorer)
7. Don't want ESCAPE to leave Mamewah
8. Mamewah preview movies don't show
9. Optimising which System services to use.
10. Speeding up XP in general
11. Bootvis


1.  Changing the boot screen

You can either remove the bootscreen from XP via the NOGUIBOOT option in msconfig, or for Mame/Mamewah users you can replace the bootscreen with an animated MAME boot menu (my preference)

a) Removing boot screen altogether

i) In XP, click START -> RUN   and enter msconfig
ii) select BOOT.ini tab
iii) click /NOGUIBOOT then OK

b) Changing boot screen to animated Mame screen

(click to enlarge)

i) Download and install Stardocks Bootskin program. HERE
ii) Download the MAME bootskin by Apocalpse_67 from HERE
iii) Remove the .zip suffix from the filename once downloaded.
iv) Run Bootskin and select File->Import and point to your mame.bootskin file.


2. Getting rid of the Welcome screen

i) Start Menu -> Control Panel + select User Accounts.
ii) Select "Change the way users log on or off"
iii) Un-tick the "Use the Welcome screen" + apply options.  Close the User Accounts window.
iv) Start Menu -> Run  and enter control userpasswords2
v) Un-tick the "User must enter a username and password to use this computer"
vi) Enter the password for the person you want to login as.


3. Getting rid of the "Loading settings" screens

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Policies>System
iii) If there is an entry for "DisableStatusMessages" set it to 1

If there is no entry, right-mouse click the "System" word, and select New->DWORD value, and enter "DisableStatusMessages", right-mouse to edit the value of it, and enter 1

4. Changing the login background color

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_USERS>.DEFAULT>Control Panel>Colors
iii) Right-mouse click the "Background" item, and select modify
iv) Enter 3 RGB (Red Green Blue) numbers in the range 0-255 each.  Black is 0 0 0 White is 255 255 255.

5. Turn off Pop Up balloons

If your cab is running in 640x480 or you have XP Security Center running you'll often get those annoying pop up balloons in the bottom right of your screen (great when you're in the middle of a great game of Galaxians..), to turn them off:

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
iii) If there is an entry for "EnableBalloonTips" set it to the decimal 0 (the digit zero)

If there is no entry, right-mouse click the "Advanced" word, and select New->DWORD value, and enter "EnableBalloonTips", right-mouse to edit the value of it, and enter the decimal 0 (the digit zero).


6. Loading straight into MameWah (or frontend of your choice)

You can either boot into Explorer and have your front-end load as one of your "Startup" items or you can tell Windows to not bother loading Explorer and go straight to your front end. This is sometimes known as "shelling" Mamewah.  The second method is quicker to load, and won't show a desktop briefly before loading your front-end, however it is more involved and riskier (if you goof up).  For the purpose of this exercise we'll assume we're using Mamewah as our front end.

a) Adding Mamewah to your startup items

i) Start Menu->All Programs->StartUp and right-mouse click the Startup word and select Explore
ii) In another window find where your Mamewah executable is, and click right-mouse and select Copy.
iii) In your "Startup" window, right mouse click and select Paste Shortcut

b) Putting Mamewah in windows shell

Because we're running Mamewah as the shell and not explorer, if we quit Mamewah we want it to startup explorer for us, otherwise we'll just have a blank screen and not (easily) be able to do anything.

i) Go to your Mamewah folder and edit your mamewah.ini file
ii) Near the bottom of the list of options is app_to_run_on_exit  enter explorer.exe next to it and save the file.
i) Start Menu->Run and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to the item HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot
iii) If there is an item in there called Shell right-mouse click and select modify
iv) Change the first three letters from SYS to USR
v) Navigate to the item HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
vi)  Right-mouse click "Winlogon" and select New->String Value
v) Name it Shell then right mouse click Shell and select modify and enter the full path to your Mamewah executeable eg. c:\emu\mamewah\mamewah.exe

7.  Don't want ESCAPE to leave Mamewah

By default the ESCAPE button is the quit button on most cabinets, and is ideal for leaving your current MAME game.. but if you want a turnkey solution for your cabinet, you don't want the users to quit Mamewah by mistake, because you're without a keyboard and firing up Mamewah will probably need a reboot. So..

i) Go to your Mamewah folder and find the ctrlr sub-folder.
ii) Edit the default.ini file and navigate to the EXIT_TO_WINDOWS item
iii) Change the entry to "DIK_TAB & DIK_ESCAPE"

This way you can use "tab + escape" if want to quit Mamewah quickly via VNC if you're controlling it remotely.

8. Mamewah preview movies don't show

a) To get game previews to work in Mamewah, first make sure you've told Mamewah about them

i) Go to your Mamewah folder, and enter the ini sub-folder
ii) Edit the ini file relating to the emulator you want previews for (mostly mame.ini or 01mame.ini for Mame)
iii) Find the movie_preview_path value and enter the path to the movies.

b) Make sure you have the right movie codec

i) Most preview movies out there require the Xvid codec, which can be found here
ii) If you're not sure which codec you need, install the codec utility Gspot which can be found here

c) Try this: Start Menu -> Run and type regsvr32 mpg4dmod.dll


9. Optimising which services to user

To access your list of services:

i) Start Menu->Control Panel
ii) Select Administrative Tools and then Services

This topic is very subjective, so I'm not going to cover it personally, but give links to resources I found useful on the subject:

Black Vipers Service Configurations

Qwerty Maniac

NOTE: If you're going to use Bootvis (below) to optimise your startup further, then do NOT deactivate the Task Scheduler service, as it's required by Bootvis.


10. Speeding up XP in general

If you're configuring XP to work in your cabinet you don't need any of the fancy features that XP automatically loads on startup like smooth fonts, fading menu items or visual styles.

i) Get to System Properties.
  a) If you have the "My Computer" icon on your desktop right mouse click it and select Properties, if not
  b) Start Menu->Run and enter sysdm.cpl

ii) Click the Advanced tab and then under the Performance heading, click Settings
iii) Click Adjust for best performance

Many people say that System Restore adds a fair overhead too, you can deactivate that also in the same System Properties box and select the System Restore tab and tick "Turn off System Restore on all drives"


11. Bootvis

OK, so you've deactivated all the services you don't want, you've got the cabinet booting to how you want, you've done a defrag but it's just taking a bit longer to boot than you would like. 

Bootvis, designed by Microsoft, analyses your boot processes and with the aid of graphs, shows you what processes / drivers are in your startup, but also how long they're taking and what your disk / CPU usage is.

i) Get Bootvis HERE and install + run it
ii) Choose File->New>Next Boot+Drivers Trace
ii) Enter number of repetitions 2 and select OK
iii) Wait for BootVis to reboot your machine twice
iv) When it's rebooted the second time and finished analysing your boot process run Bootvis again
v) Choose File->Open and open the TRACE_BOOT+DRIVERS_1_1.BIN file (in your Bootvis folder)
vi) See how long it takes to boot the first time, then open TRACE_BOOT+DRIVERS_1_2.BIN file.
vii) The second boot should be quicker.
iix) Selecting the  Trace->optimize option will reboot your machine and then defrag your boot items to make them load faster. (you will need to wait a few minutes while it does this)
ix) Repeat steps ii) to vi) to see how long it takes to boot now.  ( Change initial number starting to 3 to not overwrite the first boot logs)

NOTE: If your system is dual boot you may see errors relating to "0 drives found"


I take zero credit for this post. Thanks go to all the peeps that have contributed to it.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2006, 06:40:06 am by exiges »

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2006, 07:08:45 am »
Great info...

I strongly recommend adding this info to the wiki entry:

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Hiding_Windows

escher

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2006, 08:17:35 am »
Awesome collection of information.  Thanks!

Lilwolf

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2006, 08:22:10 am »
GREAT information

WIKI WIKI

And specifically - Thanks.  I recently upgraded my cab from 98 to XP and haven't had a chance to optimize the booting.  I now know where I'll get all the info for it.  Thanks!

ChicagoDave

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2006, 08:45:18 am »
Great post!
Homer Simpson:
"Here's to alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems."

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2006, 08:56:08 am »

I concur...this is a marvelous post and should be wiki-fied!  :applaud: :notworthy:
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2006, 09:15:51 am »
 :applaud:   :notworthy:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2006, 12:02:07 pm »
Way to go man, I was just about to start researching on this. As others have said, WIKI it! If not, I'll put it on the Wiki if noone else will do it! Just let me know.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2006, 12:29:17 pm »
Nice post. Good to see someone collected all the OS FAQs from this board and put them in one post!

Sticky!
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #9 on: May 05, 2006, 01:58:54 pm »
Nice , perfect timing  :cheers:

I  just started to look  for info into streamlining my XP boot up


 :applaud: :applaud: :applaud:


mj147

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2006, 02:10:51 pm »
Great info.  Thanks for pulling it all together in one post.   

Well Done

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2006, 02:15:01 pm »
Already added everything to do with hiding windows to the WIKI. I need to add another section dealing with optimizing WinXP.

Check it ouut!

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Hiding_Windows

This is becoming a GREAT resource guys, I had no idea how much information there is already there. Invaluable information for sure!

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2006, 05:14:32 pm »
 :notworthy: :notworthy: :applaud: :applaud: :notworthy: :notworthy:

Thanks, this is just what we need, a clear, easy to follow tutorial from beginning to end !

Thank you, thank you , thank you !

Is there something simular for setting up an ArcadeVGA f.i. ?

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2006, 05:39:09 pm »
One question:

Everything that is suggested works great, except when I escape mamewah, explorer doesn't start. I've tried entering the full path in mamewah.ini, but didn't help.

I've tried changing exit_action itno run_app and later also windows but this doesn't help either.

The whole thing is getting close to perfection, but I briefly see a "loading personal settings" window when starting up, and the mouse cursor. Anything we can do about that ?

(Feel like whining after this great post, but if it can be done it would be absolutely perfect !)

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2006, 06:03:47 pm »
 :cheers: :notworthy: :notworthy: :applaud: :applaud: :notworthy: :notworthy: :cheers:

exiges

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2006, 06:09:58 pm »
One question:

Everything that is suggested works great, except when I escape mamewah, explorer doesn't start. I've tried entering the full path in mamewah.ini, but didn't help.

Funny you should say that, I've been having problems with this too.. I'll update the FAQ if I get to the bottom of it.  Maybe MiniWah has the answer ?


I briefly see a "loading personal settings" window when starting up, and the mouse cursor. Anything we can do about that ?

You shouldn't see the "loading personal settings" message if you've deactivated them as per step 3

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2006, 06:47:05 pm »
wonderful post!!! thank you so much for taking the time to do this!!!
yeah, that's right.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #17 on: May 05, 2006, 07:25:25 pm »
3. Getting rid of the "Loading settings" screens

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Policies>System
iii) If there is an entry for "DisableStatusMessages" set it to 0 (the digit zero)

If there is no entry, right-mouse click the "System" word, and select New->DWORD value, and enter "DisableStatusMessages", right-mouse to edit the value of it, and enter 0 (the digit zero).

I've never seen this message, which probably explains why it wasn't already in the wiki. Does this only happen on slower machines? Or maybe on machines with more than one user defined?
Joseph Elwell.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #18 on: May 05, 2006, 07:31:20 pm »
I think it's on machines with multiple users defined.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #19 on: May 05, 2006, 10:40:15 pm »
3. Getting rid of the "Loading settings" screens

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Policies>System
iii) If there is an entry for "DisableStatusMessages" set it to 0 (the digit zero)

If there is no entry, right-mouse click the "System" word, and select New->DWORD value, and enter "DisableStatusMessages", right-mouse to edit the value of it, and enter 0 (the digit zero).

I've never seen this message, which probably explains why it wasn't already in the wiki. Does this only happen on slower machines? Or maybe on machines with more than one user defined?
Joseph Elwell.

I've never seen it on my PC at home (and I've not done the tweak suggested to suppress it), but I always see it on my PC at work.  Might have something to with either multiple users as exiges suggested, or being a member of a domain instead of a workgroup, or just having to log in vs. not log in.  In Windows XP, if you define only a single user and do not give that user a password, XP will automatically auto-log-in as that user.  At work, we're forced to log in all the time.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #20 on: May 06, 2006, 03:04:10 am »
Thanks for creating this post. if only we had more of you, my garage wouldnt be such a mess!

 :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #21 on: May 06, 2006, 04:30:24 am »
3. Getting rid of the "Loading settings" screens

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Policies>System
iii) If there is an entry for "DisableStatusMessages" set it to 0 (the digit zero)

If there is no entry, right-mouse click the "System" word, and select New->DWORD value, and enter "DisableStatusMessages", right-mouse to edit the value of it, and enter 0 (the digit zero).

I've never seen this message, which probably explains why it wasn't already in the wiki. Does this only happen on slower machines? Or maybe on machines with more than one user defined?
Joseph Elwell.

I've never seen it on my PC at home (and I've not done the tweak suggested to suppress it), but I always see it on my PC at work.  Might have something to with either multiple users as exiges suggested, or being a member of a domain instead of a workgroup, or just having to log in vs. not log in.  In Windows XP, if you define only a single user and do not give that user a password, XP will automatically auto-log-in as that user.  At work, we're forced to log in all the time.

OK I solved this. First I had managed to put the DWORD in the wrong place, then I managed to include a preceding space before the name of the DWORD so naturaly it didn't work. When I fixed all this, it still didn't work.

Then I figured it was strange to set a "DisableStatusMessages" value to 0 because you'd think it would be turned off then (the disablement). So I switched it to 1 and TA-DA it works !  Exages, please update your initial post with this :)

For some strange reason I'm not able to log into the Wiki anymore (???), so I couldn't correct it there myself (yet).

I do think this message only shows when there are multiple users or if it needs to log-on to a domain controller.

Anyway, it works now, thanks !

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #22 on: May 06, 2006, 04:44:51 am »
Now, being the perfectionist that I am  :blah: :blah: :laugh2: I also want to hide the cursor.

Googling for this brought me here, which is essentialy somewhat like Exages guide:
http://tomspeirs.com/gameEx/Shell.htm

I've taken the liberty to copy this from this site (hope it's ok, credits to the GameEx folks !:

QUOTE:

 Right, now for the cursor! If this isn't changed at the logon level, you'll see the mouse cursor for around five seconds while windows loads your personal settings. This really spoils the effect! Download TweakUI:

http://www.systemsmedic.com/DownloadFiles/TweakUIXP.exe

NOTE: I got a newer version of this from MS and it was missing the option that I needed!

Once this is installed, go to Control Panel>Mouse>Pointers and change all of your cursors to the one that you created earlier. Save this scheme as "MAME Single Point Cursor Set" or something. Don't apply this yet, it'll make things bloody hard to do!

Right, the last thing to do is finish off making the cursor invisible. Go back to the cursor screen in control panel, load your scheme and hit apply. It'll be hard to see your cursor, which is why I left this till last! Squint your way into your start menu and open TweakUI. Go to the LOGON option, and somewhere there is the option to copy your wall paper etc. across to the Logon Screen. Hit apply and you're done!

Restart your machine, and you should no longer notice windows at all! The only thing that really gives it away is the status bar scrolling on the boot screen, but you can get rid of this using BootEditor, but I think it's handy to have a guide as to whether or not the systems crashed! While you're in the front end, if you need to revert back to windows, press CtrlAltDelete, enter the task manager (you will have you mouse back at this point, if you can see it, or simply use the keyboard), end your Frontends, click on New Task, and type in explorer.exe. Taa Daa! Windows! Simply navigate to control panel with your invisible cursor (once you hit the start button things get easier!), and change your scheme back to the windows deault! Do your maintenance, and restart the machine. Back into your FE! Y ou like!?!


END OF QUOTE

I haven't yet tried it myself though !!! Will do in an hour or so !
« Last Edit: May 06, 2006, 05:36:39 am by Level42 »

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #23 on: May 06, 2006, 06:18:05 am »
Congrats on an excellent post, putting it all together is going to save a lot of searchng and replying to posts.

 :cheers:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #24 on: May 06, 2006, 06:42:47 am »
Then I figured it was strange to set a "DisableStatusMessages" value to 0 because you'd think it would be turned off then (the disablement). So I switched it to 1 and TA-DA it works !  Exages, please update your initial post with this :)

D'OH !!!  Done :)

I've also updated the post to include a reference to Tom Spiers website.

Do you have an icon "dot" graphic created that I can include in the "change cursor" instructions, rather than give instructions on creating that image file (which would be a pain for everyone) ?

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #25 on: May 06, 2006, 06:50:52 am »
More stuff on hiding the mouse cursor - Not sure if this is redundant - Suggest someone compile all this and add a summary to the WIKI.

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,35205.msg306896.html#msg306896
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,22414.0/all.html
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,39313.0.html

Oh - and thanks to the original poster and the poster that added this info to the WIKI.
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #26 on: May 06, 2006, 06:52:00 am »
Wow, now this is some awesome thread!!

Tagging for much needed reading later!!

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #27 on: May 06, 2006, 09:47:17 am »
Guys, I am updating the WIKI at the moment. I think it would be a good idea to provide a cursor file as well, and I have made my own already. Anybody have a good place to host it that won't be down? Saint maybe? The file is a couple of KB, so I am sure it won't be a bandwith killer. Let me know so I can add a link to download the cursor directly from the Wiki.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #28 on: May 06, 2006, 10:07:13 am »
Well, I just realized that Mamewah comes with an invisible cursor file, so you can get one from there if you are really desperate. Wiki is updated, and that prior mistake has been corrected.

Good job everybody!

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #29 on: May 06, 2006, 11:46:51 am »
Guys, I am updating the WIKI at the moment. I think it would be a good idea to provide a cursor file as well, and I have made my own already. Anybody have a good place to host it that won't be down? Saint maybe? The file is a couple of KB, so I am sure it won't be a bandwith killer. Let me know so I can add a link to download the cursor directly from the Wiki.
Why not attach it to a posting here (it's only a couple of KB's) ? Or maybe Exiges can add it to the original posting ? Anyway I guess almost everyone has Mamewah, and thus also the cursor file.

Also: There's still a small error in the Wiki:
"If there is no entry, right-mouse click the "System" word, and select New->DWORD value, and enter "DisableStatusMessages", right-mouse to edit the value of it, and enter 1 (the digit zero)."

The last zero should of course also changed to one.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2006, 11:58:33 am by Level42 »

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #30 on: May 06, 2006, 11:47:15 am »
Awesome stuff. I got my cab 1/2-way there (in terms of hiding Windows) and then never tuned it any further. This post inspires me to clean it up.

Anyone have an pointers for W2K Pro? I imagine that BIOS and Welcome stuff are the same or similar, but the account management stuff is different.

-pmc

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #31 on: May 06, 2006, 04:05:47 pm »
Awesome stuff. I got my cab 1/2-way there (in terms of hiding Windows) and then never tuned it any further. This post inspires me to clean it up.

Anyone have an pointers for W2K Pro? I imagine that BIOS and Welcome stuff are the same or similar, but the account management stuff is different.

-pmc

Windows XP is just Win2k in sheeps clothing. 99% of the settings/controls are in the same places.
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #32 on: May 06, 2006, 05:45:40 pm »
Umm, I followed the directions to disable the welcome screen and then to uncheck forcing people to log on to the computer and entered a password. 

The problem is that now windows is asking me for a password and won't accept the one that I chose.   :banghead:

Well, I was kind of looking for a new project on my box, just a little busy to get started today. 

Anyone else have this problem or try these directions for disabling the welcome screen, etc?

I currently can't logon to Windows.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #33 on: May 06, 2006, 05:49:02 pm »
Ah, thats no good. I have a utility that creates a boot cd using your existing XP disc, and when you stick it in it will reset all your passwords. You will need an XP disc handy. Send me a PM and I will email you the file, only about 4 megs.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #34 on: May 06, 2006, 05:49:17 pm »
Umm, I followed the directions to disable the welcome screen and then to uncheck forcing people to log on to the computer and entered a password. 

The problem is that now windows is asking me for a password and won't accept the one that I chose.   :banghead:

Well, I was kind of looking for a new project on my box, just a little busy to get started today. 

Anyone else have this problem or try these directions for disabling the welcome screen, etc?

I currently can't logon to Windows.

If you didn't set a password, click "Cancel" at the login dialog.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #35 on: May 06, 2006, 05:57:34 pm »
cancel is not accessible.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #36 on: May 06, 2006, 06:08:16 pm »
Also, have you tried with no password, or maybe a couple of letters off? Let me know if you want me to send you that app, it's pretty easy to use.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #37 on: May 06, 2006, 06:53:49 pm »
Not sure what the app you're referring to is, Hiub 1, but thanks for the assistance.  *Edit* I must be pretty frustrated, because I missed your earlier post.**  I'm sure I typed the password in correctly.

I'm pretty sure that I need to do a system restore, but I can't logon as the administrator to do it.  I got this computer for free from someone who moved away.  Can't imagine she bothered to create an admin password, but that seems to be the case. 

Has anyone else actually tried disabling the welcome screen as stated in the directions above?  I'm sure I followed the directions explicitly and didn't forget and/or mistype my password.

Googling right now for more info.

*Edit*  Now I have found some apps for resetting passwords, and now it says that I cannot log on because of an account restriction.  Balls. 

« Last Edit: May 06, 2006, 07:55:35 pm by KenToad »

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #38 on: May 06, 2006, 09:52:34 pm »
Update:  I still have no idea why I couldn't log in as the admin, but I finally managed it with Safe Mode.  Why didn't I think of that earlier?  Windows boggles my mind, I guess.

Long story short:  It works perfectly now.  I'm sorry if I cast a small shadow on this very helpful and informative thread.

Cheers,
KenToad

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #39 on: May 07, 2006, 05:05:27 am »
To add to point 10) Speeding up XP in general (and to get the thread back on to topic ;) )

To further improve your boot-up speed, turn off any devices you're not using on your cab in your BIOS c-mos settings. F.I. if you're not using the parallel or serial ports, disable them in the bios.
Same thing if you're not using some internal drive controllers etc.

This will prevent Win XP from needing to load the drivers for them. Maybe just a small improvement, but every (milli)second counts :)

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #40 on: May 07, 2006, 01:20:34 pm »
Windows XP is just Win2k in sheeps clothing. 99% of the settings/controls are in the same places.

That's what I thought, except I couldn't find the Welcome screen / user settings noted above. Then I remembered that XP has that user picker login screen and 2K doesn't. I've never really used XP so I can never remember the subtle interface differences.

For what it's worth, Bootskin repeatedly blue-screened my machine. I think it's because I previously mucked with the bootscreen using TweakUI and/or the Registry so it's likely that I have conflict and need to straighten that out first.

Anyone know if Phoenix Award BIOS supports a BIOS boot screen? I'm using it with an MSI nForce2 board. I don't see an option to change the boot screen.

-pmc

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #41 on: May 07, 2006, 05:13:35 pm »
Drop an ancient video card into one of your PCI slots (NOT the one next to your AGP slot though  !) and select PCI as your start-up graphics in the BIOS.
You'll have a black screen from your AGP card until XP (or in your case W2K) kicks in. :)
« Last Edit: May 07, 2006, 05:19:47 pm by Level42 »

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #42 on: May 08, 2006, 12:37:46 am »
Hey guys, Just made a little video of what the whole bootup process can become following the instructions here. It's about 70 mb, anyone have some extra space floating around to host this thing with? If not, where should I upload it to.

Thanks, Fred.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #43 on: May 09, 2006, 07:56:07 pm »
regarding boot times, XP is MUCH faster than 2k at booting up. (It was one of MS's design specs for XP over 2k)  So if its important to you, use XP instead of 2k.

A stripped down version of 9x can beat it, but its nowhere near as versatile/stable/supported/usable/compatible.

For thoses really willing to play around, you can use a free util called nLite - http://www.nliteos.com/ -  which will create a whole new XP installation set/bootable CD based on your current XP cd, removing everything that you choose. This is hardcore feature removal - you can strip several hundred megs off the XP cd - but will give you the smallest/fastest xp build. I've used it for creating XP builds to run on itx-boards with only 64/128megs ram quite successfully.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #44 on: May 09, 2006, 09:41:07 pm »
I wish there was a way to get rid of the mouse, floppy and or keyboard. Some of the older pc's complain when you remove them. Especially with the floppy even if you disable it in the bios :badmood:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #45 on: May 10, 2006, 12:21:58 am »
Hey guys, Just made a little video of what the whole bootup process can become following the instructions here. It's about 70 mb, anyone have some extra space floating around to host this thing with? If not, where should I upload it to.

Thanks, Fred.

If you can slim it down a bit using a Divx encoder, I can host it. 70mb just seems a litle bloated.
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #46 on: May 10, 2006, 08:19:24 am »
GREAT idea!  I think I might try it! 

Drop an ancient video card into one of your PCI slots (NOT the one next to your AGP slot though  !) and select PCI as your start-up graphics in the BIOS.
You'll have a black screen from your AGP card until XP (or in your case W2K) kicks in. :)


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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #47 on: May 10, 2006, 11:23:28 am »
GREAT idea!  I think I might try it! 

Drop an ancient video card into one of your PCI slots (NOT the one next to your AGP slot though  !) and select PCI as your start-up graphics in the BIOS.
You'll have a black screen from your AGP card until XP (or in your case W2K) kicks in. :)


You may also have to go in and re-enable the original video after you put in a PCI card - some BIOS' disable the built-in after it detects another video card.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #48 on: May 11, 2006, 09:23:11 am »
GREAT idea!  I think I might try it! 

Drop an ancient video card into one of your PCI slots (NOT the one next to your AGP slot though  !) and select PCI as your start-up graphics in the BIOS.
You'll have a black screen from your AGP card until XP (or in your case W2K) kicks in. :)


This works absolutely perfect! No 31 kHz signal sent to the monitor until Windows boots!

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #49 on: May 12, 2006, 09:10:01 am »
Ok somehow I screwed up.  I normally have no problems with regedits (seriously, im not a newb!)  but for some reason now it doesn't start up explorer or mamewah.  Just black screen.  I can CTRL-ALT-DELETE and start either program from there and it is all fine, but won't do it automatically.  I followed the procedure step by step, but still nothing.  I tried to put my boot registry back to normal, but it still doesnt work.  Can anyone look at this and see what the problem is?

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot]
@="SYS:Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\WOW\\boot"
"ScreenSaverActive"="USR:Control Panel\\Desktop"
"ScreenSaverIsSecure"="USR:Control Panel\\Desktop"
"SCRNSAVE.EXE"="USR:Control Panel\\Desktop"
"Shell"="SYS:Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Winlogon"

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #50 on: May 12, 2006, 09:45:27 am »
Ok somehow I screwed up.  I normally have no problems with regedits (seriously, im not a newb!)  but for some reason now it doesn't start up explorer or mamewah.  Just black screen.  I can CTRL-ALT-DELETE and start either program from there and it is all fine, but won't do it automatically.  I followed the procedure step by step, but still nothing.  I tried to put my boot registry back to normal, but it still doesnt work.  Can anyone look at this and see what the problem is?

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot]
@="SYS:Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\WOW\\boot"
"ScreenSaverActive"="USR:Control Panel\\Desktop"
"ScreenSaverIsSecure"="USR:Control Panel\\Desktop"
"SCRNSAVE.EXE"="USR:Control Panel\\Desktop"
"Shell"="SYS:Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Winlogon"

Make sure that in the login options you have the Welcome screen turned off.  "User Accounts," "Change the Way Users Login," uncheck the welcome screen option.

That fixed the same problem for me.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #51 on: May 12, 2006, 11:49:07 am »
Yep..that did it...thanks!

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #52 on: May 12, 2006, 11:59:42 am »
Excellent summary.

You just forgot the simpliest way, hibernate.

In my cabinet I just press a button, shift+pause, to hibernate. Startup only take a few seconds and I'm right back where I left (in the frontend or in the game)

No need for any hiding/optimization.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #53 on: May 12, 2006, 02:24:52 pm »
I shot a small video of my arcade's bootup this afternoon. I've had it setup this way since about June of last year. The only things left to take care of now is hide the mouse pointer during startup and to install a PCI video card.






Edit: I created a new video thats a little easier to understand

http://www.envy-online.net/video/startup_352x240.mpg
« Last Edit: May 14, 2006, 07:15:52 am by M3talhead »
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #54 on: May 12, 2006, 04:57:15 pm »
Very cool! Like the music, man that's awesome. Once you put the second vid card in there it will look even better! I will make a new boot up movie when I finish with my R-Type cab, and this one will be on an arcade monitor!

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #55 on: May 12, 2006, 05:20:17 pm »
Nice! On a side note, if you turn off the image stabilization on your camcorder, it should eliminate the scan lines on the monitor you are filming, and give you a clear picture.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #56 on: May 12, 2006, 07:37:10 pm »
One question:

Everything that is suggested works great, except when I escape mamewah, explorer doesn't start. I've tried entering the full path in mamewah.ini, but didn't help.

I've tried changing exit_action itno run_app and later also windows but this doesn't help either.


I'm not certain what exactly is happening in your setup, just figured I'd throw in what I need to do when running my PVR software as a shell so the wife can't muck around in there - I CTRL-ALT-DEL and have to manually run explorer.exe - again, no idea from a simple perusal of this thread, just throwing that out there.

Guys, I am updating the WIKI at the moment. I think it would be a good idea to provide a cursor file as well, and I have made my own already. Anybody have a good place to host it that won't be down? Saint maybe? The file is a couple of KB, so I am sure it won't be a bandwith killer. Let me know so I can add a link to download the cursor directly from the Wiki.

Throw your cursor file (or whatever cursor file you like to use that you have permission from the author to use) up on the Wiki itself.  You can upload pics to the Wiki and put them into the Wiki notes right alongside the part where you want to introduce that aspect.  For examples, see the individual jukebox pages and check the code for how to use a pic in the Wiki.


For what it's worth, Bootskin repeatedly blue-screened my machine. I think it's because I previously mucked with the bootscreen using TweakUI and/or the Registry so it's likely that I have conflict and need to straighten that out first.

Anyone know if Phoenix Award BIOS supports a BIOS boot screen? I'm using it with an MSI nForce2 board. I don't see an option to change the boot screen.

-pmc

I'd wager big money on conflicts between the two progs you used for bootscreen customization.  I ended up just doing a format and fresh install due to the exact same situation you're describing.

AFAIK, only the Asus boards supported the BIOS boot screen, I don't recall MSI boards EVER having that capability.  There were only a few that did, but newer boards may now support that capability, although you prolly won't want to buy a new board just for that.  See the PCI video card trick instead.


For thoses really willing to play around, you can use a free util called nLite - http://www.nliteos.com/ -  which will create a whole new XP installation set/bootable CD based on your current XP cd, removing everything that you choose. This is hardcore feature removal - you can strip several hundred megs off the XP cd - but will give you the smallest/fastest xp build. I've used it for creating XP builds to run on itx-boards with only 64/128megs ram quite successfully.

To learn a bit more about what you're fiddling around with, check out www.msfn.org for what nLite is doing and/or is capable of doing.  The creator of nLite is (was?) a member of msfn and created the program to simplify some of the steps and make everything easier.

I wish there was a way to get rid of the mouse, floppy and or keyboard. Some of the older pc's complain when you remove them. Especially with the floppy even if you disable it in the bios :badmood:

Make sure that you didn't just disable the floppy drive in the BIOS, make sure you also disable the "floppy drive seek" as well, otherwise all you've done is tell your PC that every time you boot up, you want it to go look for something you unplugged.  Make sure to do both things.
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #57 on: May 13, 2006, 02:17:52 am »
I'm having the exact same problem.  I have to manually load up explorer after I exit Mamewah.  I've tried everything.  When I hit ESC...it just goes to my desktop with no explorer.  Am I supposed to be using the menu to exit?


One question:

Everything that is suggested works great, except when I escape mamewah, explorer doesn't start. I've tried entering the full path in mamewah.ini, but didn't help.

I've tried changing exit_action itno run_app and later also windows but this doesn't help either.


I'm not certain what exactly is happening in your setup, just figured I'd throw in what I need to do when running my PVR software as a shell so the wife can't muck around in there - I CTRL-ALT-DEL and have to manually run explorer.exe - again, no idea from a simple perusal of this thread, just throwing that out there.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #58 on: May 13, 2006, 02:45:20 am »
When you setup a program as shell it is REPLACING explorer.  Unless the program is specifically coded to manually load explorer on exit, you'll get a blank desktop when you exit a shelled program. 

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #59 on: May 13, 2006, 04:40:23 am »
Yes, but generaly the idea is that Mamewah is configured to START explorer.exe upon exiting Mamewah. And that's not working.

Minwah where are you, we need your help !

To M3talhead:
No game intro movies on your Mamewah screen ? Guests LOVE that (and me too, it tells you so much more than a still image).

Nice video, my startup is about the same now. The idea of putting a PCI card next to your AGP is not mine or new, but I've tried it in the past and works brillianly.

M3talhead, I'm not into metal at all, but you incorporated the style pefectly on your cab. However, we do share a great taste in beer: Duvel !

Also, on the flickering of the screen: I haven't tried filming my cab, but since arcade monitors are running at 60Hz, and PAL cams are on 50Hz you can expect this flickering to happen. Are you in a PAL country ?
« Last Edit: May 13, 2006, 04:44:49 am by Level42 »

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #60 on: May 13, 2006, 07:09:18 am »
Yes, but generaly the idea is that Mamewah is configured to START explorer.exe upon exiting Mamewah. And that's not working.

Minwah where are you, we need your help !


HA!!  I've figured it out!!!  It's 7:00AM and I've been up all friggin night!!  But I got it to work!


mamewah_v161\ctrlr\default.ini

************
EXIT_WITH_CHOICE      
EXIT_TO_WINDOWS         "DIK_ESCAPE"
EXIT_AND_RUN_APP      
EXIT_AND_REBOOT         
EXIT_AND_SHUTDOWN      
************

guess where "DIK_ESCAPE" needs to be!  That's right...make it look like this:

************
EXIT_WITH_CHOICE      
EXIT_TO_WINDOWS         
EXIT_AND_RUN_APP      "DIK_ESCAPE"
EXIT_AND_REBOOT         
EXIT_AND_SHUTDOWN      
************

TADA!!!  I'm delirious!  I'm going to bed!!!    :dizzy:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #61 on: May 13, 2006, 07:36:24 am »
Yes, but generally the idea is that Mamewah is configured to START explorer.exe upon exiting Mamewah. And that's not working.

Minwah where are you, we need your help !

To M3talhead:
No game intro movies on your Mamewah screen ? Guests LOVE that (and me too, it tells you so much more than a still image).

Nice video, my startup is about the same now. The idea of putting a PCI card next to your AGP is not mine or new, but I've tried it in the past and works brilliantly.

M3talhead, I'm not into metal at all, but you incorporated the style perfectly on your cab. However, we do share a great taste in beer: Duvel !

Also, on the flickering of the screen: I haven't tried filming my cab, but since arcade monitors are running at 60Hz, and PAL cams are on 50Hz you can expect this flickering to happen. Are you in a PAL country ?

I've been living in Belgium for the last 2 years (Limburg Province) and picked this old MK3 cab up back in Dec of '04 from a local amusement vendor. I thought about doing a startup video a while ago but could never find one I liked enough.

As for the scan lines from the camcorder, I bought it not long ago and am still figuring out how to work all the bells and whistles. I found out about the PCI tip years ago (I used it in my first cab) but have just been to lazy to grab one off ebay.

And you think the Duvel mirror is cool, check this out. I toured the brewery in May of '05 (followed by the Guinness brewery and Jameson distillery in Dublin).
« Last Edit: May 13, 2006, 10:47:52 am by M3talhead »
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #62 on: May 13, 2006, 12:00:08 pm »
I shot a small video of my arcade's bootup this afternoon. I've had it setup this way since about June of last year. The only things left to take care of now is hide the mouse pointer during startup and to install a PCI video card.




That's very cool!  I love the War Games intro!  You gave me the idea.  Now I'm going to have to go pull the "Would you like to play a game?" line for my startup! :)

I'm a little confused on the sequence you show us though.  Can you explain it a bit.  It looks to me that you basically start up, shut back down, then start it up again.  But there are differences between the two startup sequences that I don't understand.  The first time there's "VERSUS" screen and I hear the "Greetings Professor Falken" line before the front end loads.  Then you shut it down and start it back up again.  This time there's no VERSUS screen, I see the regular Windows logo splash screen with the bar at the bottom for just a second, and I don't hear the Professor Falken sound.  Why the difference in the two startup sequences?

Just curious.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #63 on: May 13, 2006, 12:58:41 pm »
I think he's doing a Hybernate the 2nd time.

To Capthowdy:

 :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:
 :applaud: :applaud: :applaud: :applaud: :applaud:

Man do I love this forum !!! It's threads like these that make it shine !!!!

I've tried it and it works YIHA !

To M3talhead:
Hey, you're "around the corner" for me. I live near Rotterdam in Holland :) !
Touring the Duvel brewery (or any other Belgian brewery actualy) is still on my wish list :)

Back on topic: I didn't actualy meant a intro video for your cab, but the "intro" video's for each game. (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=45467.0)
« Last Edit: May 13, 2006, 01:17:43 pm by Level42 »

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #64 on: May 13, 2006, 01:25:26 pm »
The first bootup was just to give an example on how creative you can get with your bootlogo and how long it takes to boot with the settings described in this thread.

The second bootup was to demonstrate how much time you can save by enabling hibernation in WinXP (v.s. cold booting every time). While you do miss out on the VersuS faux bios checker and "Greetings professor Falken" intro, you save a few seconds getting into your frontend. Usually when I have friends come over who have never seen it before, I dont start it coming out of hibernation. That way they get the whole effect.
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #65 on: May 13, 2006, 03:27:44 pm »
Ah, cool, thanks for the explanation.  I understand now.  Thanks!

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #66 on: May 13, 2006, 04:02:35 pm »
Have mine working good except no mouse cursor when Mamewah exits and Explorer starts....or it is invisible.  If i move down to what I think is the start button and click around it will activate.  Not sure why this is happening???

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #67 on: May 13, 2006, 04:28:42 pm »
It's happening because you can't really kill the cursor, you can only make it invisible.  Well, that's not entirely true.... there are ways to totally kill the cursor, but I wouldn't reccomend it because it's not something that you can just turn right back on when you need to muck around in windows. 

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #68 on: May 13, 2006, 05:08:29 pm »
Ok so how do I make the cursor not invisible when Mamewah exits and explorer starts??

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #69 on: May 13, 2006, 05:28:41 pm »
Mamewah should be doing it for you.  ....

That is unless mamewah isn't what's hiding the cursor.  If you did something silly like replace the default cursor with a transparent one, then you'll have to replace it back after mamewah exits. 

I think someone wrote a utility to do it manually though... programatically speaking it isn't hard to do at all.  If not let me know, it'd literally take like 5 minutes to whip up a command line utility. 

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #70 on: May 13, 2006, 10:44:37 pm »
Not to be a jackass, but anybody have any info about doing the same thing for windows 98?

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #71 on: May 14, 2006, 12:38:09 am »
Not to be a jackass, but anybody have any info about doing the same thing for windows 98?

Is this my first chance to say "read the Wiki"?

I think it is ;)

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #72 on: May 14, 2006, 07:18:05 am »
I shot a small video of my arcade's bootup this afternoon. I've had it setup this way since about June of last year. The only things left to take care of now is hide the mouse pointer during startup and to install a PCI video card.






Edit: I created a new video thats a little easier to understand

http://www.envy-online.net/video/startup_352x240.mpg
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #73 on: May 21, 2006, 03:39:26 pm »
Yeah, found back my old PCI video card and installed it. Perfect ! Although even the WinXP bootscreen (the altered one) is not showing now, but I prefer this because now I do not get any BIOS screens. As with any brilliant idea: it's simple and works great !

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #74 on: May 21, 2006, 07:59:30 pm »
It's my understanding that it doesn't even have to actually WORK, it just has to occupy the slot so that your PC continues to try to output to it while it's booting.  I could be wrong on this though, as I don't have a non-working PCI video card to test this out. 
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #76 on: May 22, 2006, 03:20:57 pm »
It's my understanding that it doesn't even have to actually WORK, it just has to occupy the slot so that your PC continues to try to output to it while it's booting.  I could be wrong on this though, as I don't have a non-working PCI video card to test this out. 
Guess it depends to what extend it doesn't work. If there's a defect in the video part of the card, it should be fine. If it's not communicating on the PCI bus, I wonder if the trick will work. However, can't imagine someone not having an old card lying around, or being able to get one for free or nearly free...

The very last thing I need to do is remove the cursor....know how to do it. I think I will make a little black cursor, that won't be visible at start-up, but will be with a blue or white bachground.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #77 on: May 23, 2006, 09:43:55 pm »
If you make one, can you up it to the Wiki?
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #78 on: May 23, 2006, 10:54:06 pm »
I'm not sure if anybody mentioned this yet, but Tom from GameEx has a cool little program called Instant Sheller. It can be used with any frontend, and creates a bootscreen of your choice, hides the mouse within windows and all that jazz. You guys may want to check it out.

http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/shell.htm
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #79 on: May 24, 2006, 08:56:30 am »
HHmmm, have to give this a shot looks interesting. I'll post my results when I get a chance to try it out...
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #80 on: May 24, 2006, 01:41:56 pm »
Wow, that program looks nice indeed. I will give it a shot when I go back home.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #81 on: May 24, 2006, 03:25:19 pm »
Yeah, I've downloaded it but haven't tried it, because I am not done setting up the software.

If you have any problems, be sure to report them at www.gameex.info.

Tom tries to keep things from being buggy, I'm sure he'll appreciate the feedback.
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #82 on: May 25, 2006, 01:22:15 am »
Come on guys! First post, third line... it was here all the time... :-*

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #83 on: May 25, 2006, 04:08:57 am »
Come on guys! First post, third line... it was here all the time... :-*

*PFFFT*

You expect us to READ? Most of us here have enough trouble staying concious as it is.... :dizzy:
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #84 on: May 25, 2006, 05:06:32 am »
What you say M3talhead, and also what cananas writes is not true !

This info was later added to the original post following my reply #22
It wasn't there all the time  :D

So you're all excused ;)  :laugh2:

On a serious note: apart from the cursor thing I've hidden XP completely at start-up. Now how to hide xp when shutting down from Mamewah ?
« Last Edit: May 25, 2006, 05:08:44 am by Level42 »

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #85 on: May 25, 2006, 01:14:26 pm »
Well, the obvious answer is use Linux, that would solve the majority of the problems. But I'm sure most will use windows and I have no answer so this post is uselsss...
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #86 on: May 25, 2006, 02:56:47 pm »
What you say M3talhead, and also what cananas writes is not true !

This info was later added to the original post following my reply #22
It wasn't there all the time  :D

So you're all excused ;)  :laugh2:

Thanks, but...

First post:
Quote

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #87 on: May 25, 2006, 07:08:53 pm »
Hahahaha, good work inspector Clouseau !

Jonnyboy is not excused, all others are ;)  :cheers:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #88 on: June 14, 2006, 05:03:42 am »
This is an excellent write-up and one that should be mandatory reading for everybody who wants to make the arcade authentic!

Great Stuff!  :cheers:  :applaud:
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #89 on: June 15, 2006, 08:57:13 am »
One note on making Explorer your shell: Some programs that get started by Explorer won't run, like the Troubleshooter utility for Act-Labs guns and the Logitech button remapping utility. (There's probably a way to get MAMEWah to start them, now that I think about it, but I haven't really looked it at...)
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #90 on: June 19, 2006, 11:00:50 pm »
Finally got around to setting this up on my MAME box and have a few comments and questions.

Thanks to M3talhead for the "War Games" intro idea!  I found an MP3 of it on the web and edited a couple phrases together.  On bootup mine now has WOPR saying "Greetings Professor.  Shall we play a game?"  I took out the "Falken" name so whoever was booting it up, it sounds like it's talking to that person.  I almost took out the "Professor" part too but just plain "Greetings" didn't flow as well into the "Shall we play a game?" line.

Now I'd like to find something like WOPR saying "Goodbye Professor" for shutdown.  Any other recommendataions for a good shut down sound for a MAME cabinet?  OH, wait!! (Just thought of this as I'm writing.)  If I can find it as an MP3, maybe the sound the PAC-Man game makes when Pac Man dies. <wait> Okay I just searched and found the sound as a .wav file, but it's too short for what I'd really like.  Any other suggestions for a shutdown sound still very welcome!

Bootskins doesn't work on my PC.  I get the BSOD.  I opted for the simple modifying boot.ini to include the /bootlogo /noguiboot switches.  I still borrowed the MAME boot screen from bootskins though for my boot screen.  I don't get the animated progress bar but I can live without that.  I like the MAME boot up screen so I'm not going to do the PCI card thing.  Also, when starting from a cold start (I have a Bits Ltd. SmartStrip) the monitor doesn't warm up until after the BIOS screen on the PC is already past so I don't have to worry about seeing the BIOS text either.

What I ended up doing for hiding the cursor was to make my background black and then make a black cursor, so you can't see the cursor on bootup but if I exit Mamewah I can still see the cursor to navigate around the task bar and start menu.  And if I right-click on the bare desktop to bring up the Desktop Settings dialog to change the background color, the black mouse pointer shows up over the dialog very easy.  Then of course I change the background color to something else to work on the PC.

Which brings me to my first question.  Even though I've set the task bar to "auto-hide" it still appears for a few seconds before Mamewah loads (just loading Mamewah from the Startup group).  I also tried leaving auto-hide off and just manually sizing the task bar down until you just see it as a thin line but it doesn't retain that small of a profile through a reboot.  Any way to mabye color the task bar black too?

Next question, to go along with my shutdown sound, is it possible to give Windows XP a shut down screen like you could in Win 98?  I'm thinking of maybe still using the same MAME boot screen from bootskins but change the text about "System Loading, Please Stand By..." to read "System Shutting Down" or just "Goodbye" or something.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #91 on: June 20, 2006, 10:40:35 am »
Which brings me to my first question.  Even though I've set the task bar to "auto-hide" it still appears for a few seconds before Mamewah loads (just loading Mamewah from the Startup group).  I also tried leaving auto-hide off and just manually sizing the task bar down until you just see it as a thin line but it doesn't retain that small of a profile through a reboot.  Any way to mabye color the task bar black too?
Using MAMEwah as a shell instead of Explorer should take care of this, but I haven't tried it, and I guess you probably weren't crazy about it since it was mentioned previously.

You can probably get a black taskbar with some of the WindowBlinds themes from StarDock, but I have never really liked their software.

Simpler solution - Couldn't you select Windows Classic Theme and then use the appearance tab to make the taskbar black?
It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it's what you leave behind you when you go. - R. Travis.
When all is said and done, generally much more is SAID than DONE.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #92 on: June 20, 2006, 08:49:31 pm »
Yeah, I didn't really want to mess with making Mamewah the shell.  Other than the task bar now, I've got everything else completely hidden on startup.

Good idea about using classic theme.  I just tried that and I was able to make the task bar black by changing to classic theme and then setting 3D objects to black.  But it affects ALL 3D dialog boxes which makes the system very hard to use.  So for now, I'll suffer with havin the task bar appear for a couple seconds on startup.

Also, I wanted to add another tip regarding adding the custom cursors (whether you do transparent, or the dot or black, or whatever) to the Default user profile to prevent the cursor from appearing on the login screen too.  For the manual method, instead of manually creating the HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Cursors key and subkeys, just use Regedit to export the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Cursors key to a .reg file, then edit that file in notepad and change the [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Cursors] line to read [HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Cursors], then reimport the .reg file.  Much quicker than creating all those keys manually.

Also, if you do still decide to create the .Default cursor registry keys manually, the only ones you really need to create are the ones for AppStarting, Arrow, and Wait.  It's highly unklikely any of the other cursor types would show up in the few seconds the default cursors are shown on bootup with the auto-login turned on.

Still looking for any good suggestions on a shut down sound.  I've gone with Pac Man dieing for now, but would like something better.

And if anybody knows how to create a shutdown screen in Windows XP...

So, now I've got the boot up sequence right.  Now I've just got to dig into Mamewah to get all the fancy stuff working like the preview movies and sound.  I've got a lot of reading to do.

Thanks again!

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #93 on: June 20, 2006, 10:01:23 pm »
Good idea about using classic theme.  I just tried that and I was able to make the task bar black by changing to classic theme and then setting 3D objects to black.  But it affects ALL 3D dialog boxes which makes the system very hard to use.  So for now, I'll suffer with havin the task bar appear for a couple seconds on startup.

Here's an idea: make it grey, and set the background to be the grey-on-black grid that many arcade games flashed for a couple of seconds on startup.  The taskbar will get lost against the grid and it will give it a bit of arcade flavor.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #94 on: June 23, 2006, 02:47:18 pm »
Yes, but generaly the idea is that Mamewah is configured to START explorer.exe upon exiting Mamewah. And that's not working.

Minwah where are you, we need your help !


HA!!  I've figured it out!!!  It's 7:00AM and I've been up all friggin night!!  But I got it to work!


mamewah_v161\ctrlr\default.ini

************
EXIT_WITH_CHOICE      
EXIT_TO_WINDOWS         "DIK_ESCAPE"
EXIT_AND_RUN_APP      
EXIT_AND_REBOOT         
EXIT_AND_SHUTDOWN      
************

guess where "DIK_ESCAPE" needs to be!  That's right...make it look like this:

************
EXIT_WITH_CHOICE      
EXIT_TO_WINDOWS         
EXIT_AND_RUN_APP      "DIK_ESCAPE"
EXIT_AND_REBOOT         
EXIT_AND_SHUTDOWN      
************

TADA!!!  I'm delirious!  I'm going to bed!!!    :dizzy:


Ok, I did all that, but my mamewah still doesn't run the explorer when it exits.
All I get is a black screen with the cursor.
I hit ctrl-alt-delete, and use that to run explorer.
Explorer will run, but then it goes back to mamewah for some reason.
Then when I exit mamewah the second time, it goes to the explorer.


Also, I can't get the MAME boot screen to come up using the Stardocks Bootskin.
I followed the directions, got it imported, hit apply, it says it is now using the mame skin, but when I reboot, the screen just stays black until it boots into mamewah.


Anyways, thanks for an awesome guide!
Z

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #95 on: June 24, 2006, 01:12:36 am »
Ok, figured out that I needed to uncheck the box in msconfig for /noguiboot.
I must have just brain farted and didn't put 2 and 2 together when the first section said to disable the boot screen altogether, and the second section was how to make it look like something else.
But, that's a newb for ya. Not quite understanding things.

Anyways, still can't get mamewah to exit and run explorer yet.
Have tried everything I can think of.

Z

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #96 on: June 24, 2006, 03:52:24 am »
Not sure if this is really on topic but there are some easy ways of reducing the amount of hardrive space that XP takes up as well, this is especially useful if you have an old hardrive of under 10gb that you want to use.

The recycle bin
By default its set to 10%, either reduce it 2-3% or turn it off completely

Virtual Memory
Go Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-Advanced
Click on the settings box next to performance then advanced tab.
This will show the virtual memory used and there are several schools of thought on what size this should be however it defaults to a min of x1.5 installed ram and max of x3. I always set both to the lower value and have had no problems, however I suggest experimenting.

Internet Explorer
Internet explorer has a cache reserved for temporary files, open IE and go Tools-Internet Options-general, click on the settings tab next to temporary files then reduce the size to whatever you require.

System restore (Already covered)
System restore size can be reduced or turned off.
Go Start-Settings-Control Panel-System-System restore-Settings
You can move the slider to whatever size you wish, however make sure you have enough to run a restore in the event of a system failure.


By doing all these I estimate on a small harddrive of about 6gb you can save  1 - 1.5gb in space and thats one hell of a lot of games.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #97 on: June 24, 2006, 05:35:02 am »

I just formatted my hard-drive for an exercise   
(Don't ask) :dizzy:
anyway ....... I  did have most of this info but not in any neat format. It consisted of highlighted bits from web printouts and mags.

Thanks for taking the time to collate this in a logical order  :cheers:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #98 on: June 26, 2006, 04:44:56 pm »
I haven't had an opportunity to try this yet, but this is truly well written.  Thanks for taking the time to do this for those of us who - more oft than not - tend to be a little clueless about how the "behind the scenes" stuff works.  Hooray!!  :applaud:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #99 on: June 30, 2006, 03:39:58 am »
Zeppo, I had the same problem, had to edit mamewah.ini and set app_to_run_on_exit to c:\windows\explorer.exe. For some reason it needed the full path!

Hope this works for you.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #100 on: July 03, 2006, 08:09:50 am »
Hi All,

I have managed to get GameEx under XP running as a shell. Apart from not configuring one thing correctly (what to do when you exit) it works like a charm.  I followed the instructions here and then used Tom's instant sheller tool.

One issue I have though is that my wireless network connection does not work so I cant use the internet radio or news feeds. Anyone got any ideas? I guess this is an XP thing rather than a GameEx thing hence I am posting here. Anyone else got the same problem Maybe I have to set an app/driver for this to run on startup or something. All help appreciated.

Cheers
Muz

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #101 on: July 03, 2006, 08:36:56 pm »
I have a carputer as well as a MAME cab, and for my carputer I use this little app that hides your mouse cursos hassle free...  very useful because it is very easy to re-enable it momentarily for cab maintenance:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=61978
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #102 on: July 05, 2006, 03:26:27 pm »
I have a carputer as well as a MAME cab, and for my carputer I use this little app that hides your mouse cursos hassle free...  very useful because it is very easy to re-enable it momentarily for cab maintenance:

http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=61978


Nice! I just tried this out, and it rocks! I love the one pixel mouse - perfect for hiding it, and being able to use it if need be. Plus, the fact you can bring back the normal mouse easily is a nice option...

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #103 on: July 06, 2006, 09:30:15 am »
For everyone that is having problems seeing the invisible cursor, try turning cursor sonar (i think it is callesd that) on. Just make sure you turn it off before you boot back into your FE or it will show up in game every time you hit something mapped to your alt key.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #104 on: July 06, 2006, 11:31:42 am »
For everyone that is having problems seeing the invisible cursor, try turning cursor sonar (i think it is callesd that) on.
Start>Settings>Control Panel>Mouse>Pointer Options>"Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL Key"
It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you, it's what you leave behind you when you go. - R. Travis.
When all is said and done, generally much more is SAID than DONE.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #105 on: July 13, 2006, 12:02:09 am »
Here's another couple of things you might want to disable.

StickyKeys: Start - Control Panel - Accessability Options (that damb shift key catches me everytime!)

SoundScheme: Start - Control Panel - Sounds And Audio Devices - Sounds (I can't stand those Windows startup and shutdown sounds)

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #106 on: July 13, 2006, 09:31:42 pm »
Quote
One issue I have though is that my wireless network connection does not work so I cant use the internet radio or news feeds. Anyone got any ideas? I guess this is an XP thing rather than a GameEx thing hence I am posting here. Anyone else got the same problem Maybe I have to set an app/driver for this to run on startup or something. All help appreciated.

Weird, Wireless works for me with my FE as a shell using XP.

Have you tried changing the shell back to explorer and making sure wireless works again then switching back to GameEx as your shell?

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #107 on: July 21, 2006, 10:11:25 am »
After my Boot screen I get a Blue graphic that says "Gateway" in the bottom right corner this same screen also pops up right before shutdown.

Can anyone help me to remove it?

I have disabled the XP welcome screen as well as the XP logon screen.  I think I followed all the steps in this thread.  Is there something I am missing?

theCoder

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #108 on: July 21, 2006, 05:50:43 pm »
After my Boot screen I get a Blue graphic that says "Gateway" in the bottom right corner this same screen also pops up right before shutdown.

Can anyone help me to remove it?

I have disabled the XP welcome screen as well as the XP logon screen.  I think I followed all the steps in this thread.  Is there something I am missing?
I've got the same thing going on.  I think it is in the bios or rom of the motherboard.  If you're using a desktop unit, I suspect the "use an old PCI card" trick described previously in this thread will at least hide it on boot.  I'm using a laptop and don't have that option.  Any ideas anyone?

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #109 on: July 21, 2006, 09:49:36 pm »
After my Boot screen I get a Blue graphic that says "Gateway" in the bottom right corner this same screen also pops up right before shutdown.

Can anyone help me to remove it?

I have disabled the XP welcome screen as well as the XP logon screen.  I think I followed all the steps in this thread.  Is there something I am missing?
I've got the same thing going on.  I think it is in the bios or rom of the motherboard.  If you're using a desktop unit, I suspect the "use an old PCI card" trick described previously in this thread will at least hide it on boot.  I'm using a laptop and don't have that option.  Any ideas anyone?

I have a feeling you're right about the BIOS.  You might be able to flash it to get rid of the proprietary Gateway parts.

DrewKaree

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #110 on: July 22, 2006, 11:10:00 am »
It is in the BIOS, but I'd be awful careful with flashing it.  Since I've kinda lost track of who this is at, know that I'm speaking to the laptop users.  Flash the wrong one and you've got yourself a thin doorstop as a laptop, if you're even able to find a BIOS for it.  I know I've had a ---smurfette--- of a time finding BIOS' for some PC's, I can't imagine they'll make it EASIER for laptop users.
You’re always in control of your behavior. Sometimes you just control yourself
in ways that you later wish you hadn’t

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #111 on: September 03, 2006, 11:52:51 pm »
EDIT:

Nevermind.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2006, 01:31:19 am by Zeppo »
Z

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #112 on: September 04, 2006, 05:34:01 pm »
Can this get stickied?

DrewKaree

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #113 on: September 04, 2006, 06:27:50 pm »
Can this get stickied?

I think you meant to say "WIKI'd", and it is.
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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #114 on: September 04, 2006, 11:46:07 pm »
Can this get stickied?

I think you meant to say "WIKI'd", and it is.

Ok, cool.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #115 on: November 23, 2007, 10:58:53 am »
Quote
One issue I have though is that my wireless network connection does not work so I cant use the internet radio or news feeds. Anyone got any ideas? I guess this is an XP thing rather than a GameEx thing hence I am posting here. Anyone else got the same problem Maybe I have to set an app/driver for this to run on startup or something. All help appreciated.

Weird, Wireless works for me with my FE as a shell using XP.

Have you tried changing the shell back to explorer and making sure wireless works again then switching back to GameEx as your shell?

along the lines of these two quotes, I have looked through the forums and cannot find a good answer....I have a similiar problem,  I have the guncon software in my startup, along with a little program called voumetray that allows me to use my joysticks to control windows volume.   When I use the sheller everthing is great except those programs in startup dont run,  is there a way to get these to run in the background along with  mamewah?

I do have a theory on the wireless problem though,  if you have third party wireless software running in startup instead of just having windows control your wireless,  that may be why its not working,  startup items dont actually startup because its shelling mamewah or gamex and thats it.    Thats just my opinion.

Anyone know a good answer to these questions,  THANKS A BUNCH!!!
"True Knowledge consists in knowing that you know nothing"

topher0002

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #116 on: November 30, 2007, 03:14:43 pm »
Stumbled across my own answer here.....use the tool called XYNTService at the bottom of this page:

http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Other_Software#Utilities
"True Knowledge consists in knowing that you know nothing"

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #117 on: April 04, 2008, 07:34:02 pm »
hi tryed this method on xp pro, did thet edit bootscreen, changed settings but no bootscreen was displayed, then came up something about windows settings changed and wanted to restore them, so i tryed again and nothing, even ticking  box twice check/uncheck, also the loggin, i didnt have login till did what it sayed to get rid of welcome screen, and it started asking for a password and i couldnt get rid of it, now ive locked myself out and ned to reinstall windows, what went wrong??

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #118 on: November 17, 2008, 02:37:08 am »
I'm not sure if anybody mentioned this yet, but Tom from GameEx has a cool little program called Instant Sheller. It can be used with any frontend, and creates a bootscreen of your choice, hides the mouse within windows and all that jazz. You guys may want to check it out.

http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/shell.htm


I know this is an old topic but I just wanted to say thank you for this suggestion, this worked spectacularly.  I was looking all night about how to hide the mouse cursor easily on windows startup.

I visit this site on occasion as I'm in the process of setting up an arcade system on windows, but I used this software for a media center application (MediaPortal).

Anyways, the software worked great and even had some other options that could have saved me some time earlier.  They've continued to update it since you posted this long ago and it works great.  Thank you Thank you Thank you!

rikprice

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #119 on: August 20, 2011, 05:57:10 am »
EXCELLENT POST
YOU HAVE SAVED ME HOURS OF WORK

THANK YOU

equlizer

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #120 on: August 28, 2011, 05:01:15 am »
I just did this today and when it booted back up, it asked for the admin password which there wasnt one.  I didnt give it a password.  I ended up formatting :(

My stupid keyboard wouldnt even work after the bios  :angry: :badmood:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #121 on: September 01, 2011, 02:58:10 am »
I just did this today and when it booted back up, it asked for the admin password which there wasnt one.  I didnt give it a password.  I ended up formatting :(

My stupid keyboard wouldnt even work after the bios  :angry: :badmood:

Sounds as you skipped an early part - setting admin passwords. Also, if your keyboard is USB, the usb drivers may not have loaded yet. Or they were somehow disabled.

The guide, I feel, is out-dated in that it works better for Win98 and early XP. I use InstantSheller - which, while there can be issues with, they are less common.
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TopJimmyCooks

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #122 on: September 01, 2011, 10:19:30 am »
I keep a beater PS/2 keyboard just for such occasions.  'Course your MB must have a PS/2 port, but it's still common to get a combo port on most all new MB's I've looked at.

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #123 on: September 01, 2011, 09:04:38 pm »
The weird thing is my Microsoft keyboard works all the time but the logitech one i bought for my cab doesnt :timebomb:

Exchanged for another MS keyboard  :applaud:

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Re: Summary: Hiding XP / Booting to your Emulator / Optimizing boot
« Reply #124 on: July 22, 2013, 01:39:25 pm »
There have been alot of threads on here posted by some very knowledgeable people about how to best hide XP from the boot up screens, and how to auto login, etc. but there doesn't seem to be a single start-to-finish post on the subject.  Much of what we want done to XP can be sorted by a single application by Tom Spiers here

So here goes, first covering the hiding of XP, then a bit about speeding it all up.  Included are:

1. Changing/removing the boot screen
2. Removing the Welcome screen
3. Removing the "Loading settings" and other startup messages
4. Change the login background color
5. Turn-off popup balloons
6. Loading straight to Mamewah (and exiting to Explorer)
7. Don't want ESCAPE to leave Mamewah
8. Mamewah preview movies don't show
9. Optimising which System services to use.
10. Speeding up XP in general
11. Bootvis


1.  Changing thter the password for the person you want to login as.


3. Getting rid of the "Loading settings" screens

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Policies>System
iii) If there is an entry for "DisableStatusMessages" set it to 1

If there is no entry, right-mouse click the "System" word, and select New->DWORD value, and enter "DisableStatusMessages", right-mouse to edit the value of it, and enter 1

4. Changing the login background color

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_USERS>.DEFAULT>Control Panel>Colors
iii) Right-mouse click the "Background" item, and select modify
iv) Enter 3 RGB (Red Green Blue) numbers in the range 0-255 each.  Black is 0 0 0 White is 255 255 255.

5. Turn off Pop Up balloons

If your cab is running in 640x480 or you have XP Security Center running you'll often get those annoying pop up balloons in the bottom right of your screen (great when you're in the middle of a great game of Galaxians..), to turn them off:

i) Start Menu -> Run  and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to entry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced
iii) If there is an entry for "EnableBalloonTips" set it to the decimal 0 (the digit zero)

If there is no entry, right-mouse click the "Advanced" word, and select New->DWORD value, and enter "EnableBalloonTips", right-mouse to edit the value of it, and enter the decimal 0 (the digit zero).


6. Loading straight into MameWah (or frontend of your choice)

You can either boot into Explorer and have your front-end load as one of your "Startup" items or you can tell Windows to not bother loading Explorer and go straight to your front end. This is sometimes known as "shelling" Mamewah.  The second method is quicker to load, and won't show a desktop briefly before loading your front-end, however it is more involved and riskier (if you goof up).  For the purpose of this exercise we'll assume we're using Mamewah as our front end.

a) Adding Mamewah to your startup items

i) Start Menu->All Programs->StartUp and right-mouse click the Startup word and select Explore
ii) In another window find where your Mamewah executable is, and click right-mouse and select Copy.
iii) In your "Startup" window, right mouse click and select Paste Shortcut

b) Putting Mamewah in windows shell

Because we're running Mamewah as the shell and not explorer, if we quit Mamewah we want it to startup explorer for us, otherwise we'll just have a blank screen and not (easily) be able to do anything.

i) Go to your Mamewah folder and edit your mamewah.ini file
ii) Near the bottom of the list of options is app_to_run_on_exit  enter explorer.exe next to it and save the file.
i) Start Menu->Run and enter regedit
ii) Navigate to the item HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\boot
iii) If there is an item in there called Shell right-mouse click and select modify
iv) Change the first three letters from SYS to USR
v) Navigate to the item HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
vi)  Right-mouse click "Winlogon" and select New->String Value
v) Name it Shell then right mouse click Shell and select modify and enter the full path to your Mamewah executeable eg. c:\emu\mamewah\mamewah.exe

7.  Don't want ESCAPE to leave Mamewah

By default the ESCAPE button is the quit button on most cabinets, and is ideal for leaving your current MAME game.. but if you want a turnkey solution for your cabinet, you don't want the users to quit Mamewah by mistake, because you're without a keyboard and firing up Mamewah will probably need a reboot. So..

i) Go to your Mamewah folder and find the ctrlr sub-folder.
ii) Edit the default.ini file and navigate to the EXIT_TO_WINDOWS item
iii) Change the entry to "DIK_TAB & DIK_ESCAPE"

This way you can use "tab + escape" if want to quit Mamewah quickly via VNC if you're controlling it remotely.

8. Mamewah preview movies don't show

a) To get game previews to work in Mamewah, first make sure you've told Mamewah about them

i) Go to your Mamewah folder, and enter the ini sub-folder
ii) Edit the ini file relating to the emulator you want previews for (mostly mame.ini or 01mame.ini for Mame)
iii) Find the movie_preview_path value and enter the path to the movies.

b) Make sure you have the right movie codec

i) Most preview movies out there require the Xvid codec, which can be found here
ii) If you're not sure which codec you need, install the codec utility Gspot which can be found here

c) Try this: Start Menu -> Run and type regsvr32 mpg4dmod.dll


9. Optimising which services to user

To access your list of services:

i) Start Menu->Control Panel
ii) Select Administrative Tools and then Services

This topic is very subjective, so I'm not going to cover it personally, but give links to resources I found useful on the subject:

Black Vipers Service Configurations

Qwerty Maniac

NOTE: If you're going to use Bootvis (below) to optimise your startup further, then do NOT deactivate the Task Scheduler service, as it's required by Bootvis.


10. Speeding up XP in general

If you're configuring XP to work in your cabinet you don't need any of the fancy features that XP automatically loads on startup like smooth fonts, fading menu items or visual styles.

i) Get to System Properties.
  a) If you have the "My Computer" icon on your desktop right mouse click it and select Properties, if not
  b) Start Menu->Run and enter sysdm.cpl

ii) Click the Advanced tab and then under the Performance heading, click Settings
iii) Click Adjust for best performance

Many people say that System Restore adds a fair overhead too, you can deactivate that also in the same System Properties box and select the System Restore tab and tick "Turn off System Restore on all drives"


11. Bootvis

OK, so you've deactivated all the services you don't want, you've got the cabinet booting to how you want, you've done a defrag but it's just taking a bit longer to boot than you would like. 

Bootvis, designed by Microsoft, analyses your boot processes and with the aid of graphs, shows you what processes / drivers are in your startup, but also how long they're taking and what your disk / CPU usage is.

i) Get Bootvis HERE and install + run it
ii) Choose File->New>Next Boot+Drivers Trace
ii) Enter number of repetitions 2 and select OK
iii) Wait for BootVis to reboot your machine twice
iv) When it's rebooted the second time and finished analysing your boot process run Bootvis again
v) Choose File->Open and open the TRACE_BOOT+DRIVERS_1_1.BIN file (in your Bootvis folder)
vi) See how long it takes to boot the first time, then open TRACE_BOOT+DRIVERS_1_2.BIN file.
vii) The second boot should be quicker.
iix) Selecting the  Trace->optimize option will reboot your machine and then defrag your boot items to make them load faster. (you will need to wait a few minutes while it does this)
ix) Repeat steps ii) to vi) to see how long it takes to boot now.  ( Change initial number starting to 3 to not overwrite the first boot logs)

NOTE: If your system is dual boot you may see errors relating to "0 drives found"


I take zero credit for this post. Thanks go to all the peeps that have contributed to it.
Most all these links are now dead.