The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls

Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: Lave Laar on January 03, 2010, 02:29:19 pm

Title: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Lave Laar on January 03, 2010, 02:29:19 pm
(http://home.online.no/~llindga/images/QS.jpg)

I've release a new program called Quick Sheller.
It's a program to aid in the job of hiding windows.

Before you ask, I know that Instant Sheller already exists and I think it's an excellent program.
I wanted a program that could do the same and didn't need the .NET runtime files installed.

It should incorporate most of the things described in the "Hiding Windows" section in the Wiki.
Some of the ideas ("Turn off event sounds" and "Disable windows animations")  I got from Instant Sheller.

If you want to try it you can get it here. (http://home.online.no/~llindga)



Title: Re: Quick Sheller
Post by: Hoopz on January 03, 2010, 04:14:01 pm
 :applaud:

Thanks!  I'll try this soon a little project that I did over Christmas for my daughters.

 :cheers:
Title: Re: Quick Sheller
Post by: drventure on January 03, 2010, 05:49:39 pm
Looks cool

Quote
I wanted a program that could do the same and didn't need the .NET runtime files installed.

Oh, you +will+ be assimilated.  ;)
Title: Re: Quick Sheller
Post by: taylormadelv on January 07, 2010, 06:34:39 pm
Works great. :applaud: Super easy. I had to re-read the "hiding Windows" wiki to get back to the desktop.
Title: Re: Quick Sheller
Post by: Gorotsuki on January 07, 2010, 06:50:32 pm
Thank you.
I'm going to give it a try.
Title: Re: Quick Sheller
Post by: cipriani2k on January 08, 2010, 05:20:03 am
hmm, this seems insanely idiot proof. That being the case, I cant wait to try this out
Title: Re: Quick Sheller
Post by: Lave Laar on January 09, 2010, 04:18:52 pm
I've released a new version 0.91

New in this release:

* Added support for running a vb-script or a batch-file directly as the shell
* Example vbs and bat files included with the program
* Some minor cosmetic changes

The ability to shell vb-scripts and batch-files is useful if you need to start certain programs before your FE starts.
I would suggest using the vb-script method as it will not bring up the ugly command window when executing the commands.

Available here. (http://home.online.no/~llindga)
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.91 released
Post by: Yoeddy1 on January 17, 2010, 01:22:52 am
Question that I'm sure many are wondering:

Does it work with Vista or Windows 7 32 and 64 bit?
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.91 released
Post by: abispac on January 17, 2010, 12:56:34 pm
works super nice, on one of my machines , i did the undo button and dint restart , did the apply changes again and everything look normal, but when i try to undo things and restart again the app its still shelled, only in one of 4 machines.
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.91 released
Post by: SephYuyX on January 23, 2010, 10:54:52 pm
Looks good, going to try this for myself.
While im here, does anyone know of a good place for MAME themed boot screens and intro vids while the FE boots?
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.91 released
Post by: Popcorrin on February 07, 2010, 05:32:01 pm
I tried this out with xp media center 2005 and everything worked except hiding the boot screen.  Not sure why this is, but I was wondering if the media center boot logo is located in a location different from the other editions of xp.
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Lave Laar on February 13, 2010, 09:08:35 am
I suspect this has got something to do the way I detect which line to change in the boot.ini file.
Version 0.91 search for "WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP" and then add the correct switches at the end of that line if it's not already changed.
Your media-edition boot.ini file probably says something like "WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition".

I've released a new version that changes the search-pattern to "\WINDOWS="".  This should be more universal, I hope.

Available here (http://home.online.no/~llindga)
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Popcorrin on February 13, 2010, 09:22:43 pm
That fixed it.  Thanks
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: javeryh on March 01, 2010, 02:09:00 pm
Is this easy to "undo" if it doesn't work the way I hope it works?
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Lave Laar on March 02, 2010, 06:04:52 pm
Yes.  It does have an undo-function.
All changes made to the registry is saved to a reg-file in the program folder.
It will also make a copy of the boot.ini file.
Basically it follows the steps described in the "Hiding Windows" section of the wiki.
You can make a copy of the reg-file before running the undo-function to see what changes has been made and then follow the wiki, if for some odd reason the undo doesn't work as it should.
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: javeryh on March 03, 2010, 10:53:51 am
Yes.  It does have an undo-function.
All changes made to the registry is saved to a reg-file in the program folder.
It will also make a copy of the boot.ini file.
Basically it follows the steps described in the "Hiding Windows" section of the wiki.
You can make a copy of the reg-file before running the undo-function to see what changes has been made and then follow the wiki, if for some odd reason the undo doesn't work as it should.


What if I've already made some changes that are listed in the wiki (I got rid of the pop-up balloons).

Thanks!!   :cheers:

Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Lave Laar on March 03, 2010, 11:34:58 am
If you've already made some changes, QS will redo them when you press the "Apply changes" button.

If you have the balloon pop-ups disabled before you run QS, the pop-ups will still be disabled after running QS's undo-function.
QS undo-function should put WinXP back to the state it was in before applying the changes as it backup the values that are currently in the registry.
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Havok on March 04, 2010, 12:38:50 pm
Anyone tried this yet with Windows 7 64bit?
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: tspeirs on March 04, 2010, 02:57:30 pm
It really is the greatest form of flattery when someone uses your idea, and I dont have a problem, but it would be nice to get a credit on the downlod site or in the app. Like I said don't have a problem though, its not like its a commerical app or anything.
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Lave Laar on March 04, 2010, 06:20:24 pm
Anyone tried this yet with Windows 7 64bit?

It will not work properly with Windows 7.  Only with windows XP.

It really is the greatest form of flattery when someone uses your idea, and I dont have a problem, but it would be nice to get a credit on the downlod site or in the app. Like I said don't have a problem though, its not like its a commerical app or anything.

Not sure what you're talking about.  I've credited Instant Sheller for the two ideas I took from it.  Both here in the forums and in the readme.txt file of the program.   ???
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: tspeirs on March 06, 2010, 05:03:23 am
Not sure what you're talking about.  I've credited Instant Sheller for the two ideas I took from it.  Both here in the forums and in the readme.txt file of the program.   ???

Its not a big deal. I think my point really is that the entire thing and idea is based on instantsheller. Like I said its not a big deal.

:)
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: andrewbean90 on March 06, 2010, 07:53:45 am
I think its cool
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: javeryh on March 06, 2010, 07:57:19 am
If you've already made some changes, QS will redo them when you press the "Apply changes" button.

If you have the balloon pop-ups disabled before you run QS, the pop-ups will still be disabled after running QS's undo-function.
QS undo-function should put WinXP back to the state it was in before applying the changes as it backup the values that are currently in the registry.

Excellent.  Thanks!!  I think I'm going to try it today...
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: javeryh on April 25, 2010, 03:08:52 pm
OK, I'm finally working up the nerve for this... one last question - what happens when I exit my front-end?  Will it go back to windows desktop so I can use the computer normally like for editing gamelists and moving files around and stuff??

Thanks!
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: javeryh on April 25, 2010, 03:26:42 pm
Ugh.  It didn't seem to work... I still see the XP load screen and all of the start-up sounds.  The mouse pointer is also white on boot-up.  So.... how do I undo this?  I can't seem to exit to my desktop - when I exit my front end I'm brought to a blank screen!

Any help would be great.  Thanks!!
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: javeryh on April 25, 2010, 03:52:30 pm
OK, now I'm a bit worried - I managed to run QS again by hitting CCTR-ALT-DEL and running it through the task manager.  I clicked the "Undo" button and rebooted - it didn't undo anything!  How do I get windows back??? 

 ??? ???
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: javeryh on April 25, 2010, 07:06:58 pm
OK, I was able to manually run the system restore and I restored everything to the way it was yesterday afternoon.  Whew!  I guess I'll have to do the XP hiding manually.  I like the idea of the sheller but I don't think I'm computer literate enough to be comfortable.   :cheers:
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Bender on July 16, 2010, 10:30:08 am
I'm in the same boat the "Undo" doesn't do anything

how do I undo this :banghead:
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Bender on July 19, 2010, 03:39:13 pm
ok the Undo feature is a little buggy
this is What I've figured out so far

First off it a good idea to set up you Front End to be able to exit to window before you shell it (this will save a lot of headache if there are any problems)

if you make one set of changes and don't have to undo anything this program works great
If you do want to change anything you must undo everything you already did FIRST, this seemed to work for everything but the shelled program so, after the first restart, I check the box for shelling and left it blank, then restarted a second time and I was back to windows!

Then started over with a new set of changes and everything seems to be good

one other thing if you are replacing the startup image it MUST be: 640x480, indexed color space, with 16 colors(or less), 4-bit, bmp, with no compression
I would also set it to 72dpi but I'm not sure that matters
if this image is not right windows won't start
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: pitufo on December 20, 2010, 02:19:01 pm
thx  :woot
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: EVEGames on December 21, 2010, 12:57:00 pm
one other thing if you are replacing the startup image it MUST be: 640x480, indexed color space, with 16 colors(or less), 4-bit, bmp, with no compression
I would also set it to 72dpi but I'm not sure that matters
if this image is not right windows won't start

Bender, that's a very good tip.  The only part that I'm not sure how to accomplish is "indexed color space"... any tips on how to make sure a picture has indexed color space?  And if possible, how to accomplish this in Paint Shop Pro specifically, although I'm sure most people use Photo Shop.
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: Bender on December 22, 2010, 02:06:02 pm
sorry I don't know Paint shop pro
in photoshop it's under Image/Mode
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: androtaz08 on October 29, 2011, 10:51:08 pm
anyone ever sort out the undo issue?
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: sega_mad on February 14, 2012, 01:17:56 am
Lave Laar....You are a Legend!! :burgerking:

After upgrading to XP 64 Bit and all new gear (1155 M/B, 2500K CPU, HD4890 video card)...I couldn't totally hide windows (manually, following the "how to guide"), even though I had it runing perfectly on my 32 bit XP computer.

Found your program...ran it, and had it running perfectly in minutes.

The only problem I found was that the login screen still shows for a very brief second prior going to the front end??

Any idea how to fix this?

Thanks again for a great app
Title: Re: Quick Sheller - v 0.92 released
Post by: IG-88 on December 04, 2012, 08:05:52 pm
Hey Lave Laar, I realize this is a long shot but I was wondering if this project ever got finished or whats up with it? I've been looking for a shell program for win98 (I know, I know, long story) and stumbled across this. I can go the long route and hide windows via the wiki. Was looking for an easier route tho...