The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Front End Support => MaLa Frontend => Topic started by: Samanai on July 18, 2006, 01:45:05 pm
-
I'm stuck on a question that I'm hopeful someone here can help me out with. In a nutshell (no pun intended), I tried to "Shell" Mala as described in the Wiki (see below). It works great, right up to the point where I try and exit from Mala and launch explorer.exe as my exit application. Every time I do that, Mala gets hung up and won't terminate, and my computer slows to the speed of molasses, even after I use task manager to end Mala. I have the same exact issues when I use the shell utility found at this link: http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/shell.htm, so I don't think it's just me. Any ideas on what's going on? Suggestions on how to make this work properly?
RELEVANT PASSAGE FROM THE WIKI:
Replacing Explorer With Your FE In XP
To almost completely bypass Windows and its trimmings, you may want to set up your front end as a shell.
Note: To do this automagically during startup in XP your computer may be a part of a workgroup, but it CAN'T be part of a domain.
Here is the process to follow in order to set up your front end as a shell:
You must have at least 2 users with admin privileges
Open the user that will be auto logged in to the account that will be running your front end as a shell. This user should have admin rights.
Set XP to automate the login process.
Click start >run >type
control userpasswords2Deselect the Users must enter a username and password... checkbox.
Click Apply
Enter the user & pass you want to login with & click OK
Click OK again
Configure your front end... this is not a trial run, so make sure it's the way you want it. You can always get the explorer back, but it will take a minute or two to do so.
Open regedit and find
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\system.ini\bootFind a string entry called Shell.
Change the first 3 letters (which should read SYS) to USR. The path after USR will look different for your system, but it should appear similar to this: USR:BLAH\BLAH\BLAH. This tells windows to ignore the system
-
Your'e not doing anything wrong. ;)
MaLa is not shutting down properly when you use the option to 'launch an app on exit'
I will bring this to the attention of SWINDUS :P
-
Thanks Loadman. I just figured that if it was a software issue and not a
"me" issue, someone else would have run into it by now
-
It is a Newish feature. I did discover the bug but failed to report it a few weeks ago
Sorry
-
No apologies needed. Thanks for the help!
-
WOW, this is huge. I am literaly dozens of days away from wanting to run MALA as a shell on my computer and I dont want to have to switch back to Mamewah after all this work.
I love mamewah its just that everything Is already set up in MALA on my computer.
-
It's a Bug that SWINDUS will no doubt address
You can use it a a shell right now (as I have been doing for months)
You just don't the option to have it automatically load explorer (if you want it to) when you quit MaLa at the moment.
However you can quit and load explorer via cntrl/alt/del Task Manager (as always)
-
I will fix this as soon as I find the time ....
-
loadman, thanks for the tip. I hadn't considered that work-around.
Timoe, I'd highly recommend Mala even with this glitch. It has exceeded my expectations.
-
Is there a reason you would want to exit MaLa and launch explorer.exe automatically if you aren't using the computer for anything except for your arcade machine?
-
Is there a reason you would want to exit MaLa and launch explorer.exe automatically if you aren't using the computer for anything except for your arcade machine?
Nope :-)
Some requested the feature. I dunno why?
I would have thought if you wanted it to run explorer all the time you would not set-up the FE as the shell anyway. You could just have the FE in windows strat-up folder of windows
I do have mala run as the shell
If I want to do changes to my PC. EG add roms or snaps. I do it via a network connection or I launch explorer via cntl-alt-del task manager file-new task explorer. It also stops kids and intoxicated friends from breaking it :cheers:
-
loadman, thanks for the tip. I hadn't considered that work-around.
Timoe, I'd highly recommend Mala even with this glitch. It has exceeded my expectations.
Another thing to do if you have a bit of 'housekeeping' on your cab is run explorer while MaLa is still running.
You can set this up in controllers (see pic attached)