WinXP Tips/tweaks so my cab doesn't look like it's running windows at all.

[SpamMe]

I don't have a lot of experience tweaking windows in general, and especially not for this kind of project. I'd like it if people that turned on my cabinet didn't think "oh, there's a windows PC in there running this frontend." It's not a big deal, but with the time/money that goes into this stuff, it might as close to what I want it to be as possible

Stuff I've been able to do so far:

• Use Mamewah as a shell (don't have to deal with the taskbar/windows/desktop icons etc.)
• Disable the Welcome Screen and startup/shutdown messages
• Changed the bootscreen from the default Windows XP one to something more suitable
  
• Change the login background color (from blue to black). Login is disabled, but background color still shows up.

All that's left, imo, is to figure out a way to disable/hide the cursor (shows up from the time the bootscreen finishes with its loading sequence to when mamewah starts). If, for some reason, I need to start explorer, tho, I don't want to be struggling along with no cursor. Any suggestions? Maybe a way to have no cursor by default, but have a hotkey to get it back?

Anything else I havn't thought of (I know theres plenty )?

[Howard_Casto]

Can't be done.  The things you are wanting are somewhat doable, but they are permenant and making admin work very difficult. (As the best way to do it is to change all system colors to black.)  Welcome screens can be turned of easily, but then you get a windows 2000 style login box which is even worse imo.  

[SpamMe]

Well as I said, they're all done except for the pointer.

Right now, the machine boots up, goes to the custom bootscreen, finishes, resolution changes, pointer shows up (black background throughout), then mamewah opens. No icons, no weird background colors, no dialogues, etc.
If it weren't for the pointer, you'd never really know (well the boot screen linked does say MameXP, but that's about it). Just looking for a way to deal with the pointer.

It seems like custom pointer schemes are not immediately loaded, either. I was thinking I could make a pointer set full of blank cursors(and just switch to another theme when I needed to), but I changed to a non-standard scheme and found that there were several seconds when I had a pointer onscreen, but the scheme had not yet taken effect. So, a custom scheme with blank pointers would still not do the trick (you'd still get a few seconds of normal cursor before they disappeared).

[MrPoPo]

Hey SpamMe !!

Can do you explain how you do it ??

Use Mamewah as a shell (don't have to deal with the taskbar/windows/desktop icons etc.)

Disable the Welcome Screen and startup/shutdown messages

Changed the bootscreen from the default Windows XP one to something more suitable

Change the login background color (from blue to black). Login is disabled, but background color still shows up.

[Random24]

Hey MrPoPo,

Take a look at this thread

http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=11713

Look at my first post for some more info.

[MrPoPo]

Thanks but I read this before.

I want to quit the dialog boxes and the start and finish scrrens.

[paigeoliver]

Somewhere inside the massive windows directory lives the default cursor. If you actually replace that file with a blank cursor, then you should never have to worry about seeing one again.

Note, I have not looked for this file, so it may very well reside inside a .dll file, but even then it can still be gotten to with a program or two (I think they call them resource editors).

[Jakobud]

Regarding the cursor, something you could do is create your own mouse pointer icon(s).  I did this a while back because I didn't know how to 'hide' the cursor.  I made a new cursor icon that consisted of a single pixel.  It was very small and hard to see when I wanted to admin something but to the normal user, no one ever EVER even knew it was there...  it could be sitting right in the middle of the screen they wouldnt even see it.  But since you knows it there its not difficult to use it for admin purposes.

[TalkingOctopus]

Welcome screens can be turned of easily, but then you get a windows 2000 style login box which is even worse imo.  

You can turn that off the windows 2000 style login box too...well almost, it flashes for about a 1/10 of a second on my cab.  You can set it to autologin.  I don't remember how I did it, but search google for autologin and you should be able to find the settings.

For the start bar, I just set it to autohide.

I changed the bootscreen to the mamewah logo.  I used a free program that someone pointed out to me on this board.

[SpamMe]

Hey SpamMe !!

Can do you explain how you do it ??

Use Mamewah as a shell (don't have to deal with the taskbar/windows/desktop icons etc.)

Courtesy Random24 in another thread:

Getting a Front-end to run as a shell in XP and start with no user intervention
^{You cannot do this if your computer is part of a domain. It must only be part of a workgroup.}

• Create a user that will be the auto-login user. (User should have admin rights at this time)
• Configure XP to automate the logon process if your computer is not part of a domain.
• Click Start, click Run, and type control userpasswords2.
• Clear the Users must enter a username and password to use this computer check box.
• Click Apply.
• Enter the user name and pwd you wish to automatically log on with, and then click OK.
• Click OK again and you're all done.
• Setup your FE the way you want it.
• Open regedit and browse to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon"
• Look for a string entry called 'Shell'. If it is not there, create a string entry and name it 'Shell'. Set the value of this entry to the name and location of your Front-end. For Lazarus, the shell entry may be "C:\Lazarus\Lazarus.exe" or wherever your Lazarus executable is located. For explorer, the entry is simply "explorer.exe".
• Log out as the auto-login user and log back in as another user with administrative rights.
• Change the auto-login user to a standard user. (This way people don't have more access than you want them to have.)

I was unable to use mamewah as a shell until the welcome screen was disabled. It would say "Loading personal settings" and I could hear mamewah behind it, but it wasn't focused. Worked fine without the welcome screen though.

Disable the Welcome Screen and startup/shutdown messages

Change from the default windows XP welcome screen to the other style by going to Control Panels>User Accounts>Change the way users logon or off. Deselect the "Use Welcome Screen" checkbox.
To get rid of the startup and shutdown messages via regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Windows>CurrentVersion>Policies>System
If there's a DisableStatusMessages dword there, change it to 1, otherwise add it and change it to 1.

Changed the bootscreen from the default Windows XP one to something more suitable

Note "More suitable" was a link to mame-themed bootscreen available for download. I'm using it with Logon Loader: http://www.radfiles.com/logonloader/

Change the login background color (from blue to black). Login is disabled, but background color still shows up.

Background color is here:
HKEY_USERS>.DEFAULT>Control Panel>Colors>Background
It's a 3 digit RGB Color. I just changed mine to 0 0 0

Regarding the cursor, something you could do is create your own mouse pointer icon(s).

That seems like the trick, but I think that custom cursors are not loaded immediately (when I was using one of the non-default schemes, the normal cursor loaded first, and the custom one loaded a little later).

[SpamMe]

Here are a couple videos of the boot up on my cab PC (currently without a cabinet ). It's 41 seconds.
 
In the larger video, you can see the default cursor load, then the custom one (which is just one of the default magnified cursors). There's got to be a way to disable the cursor without disabling the mouse, and it probably has to be a registry entry.

[MrPoPo]

Thank you !!

But if you want to change another time the shell how do you it ??

[SpamMe]

If you follow random's instructions, you only have to login as another user in order get back to explorer. Otherwise, you can hit ctrl-alt-delete, run regedit, and delete the shell entry, and restart.

[SpamMe]

Thought I'd follow up on this. I asked the question about the cursor at a WHOLE bunch of places. HowardC pointed me to the issue (the logon uses its own cursors), and a mod on neowin.net let me know that you can use the newest version of Tweak UI to copy your current cursor to the logon. Worked like a charm. You can also use it to replace the background color with wallpaper, and it looks like a whole buncha other stuff, too, but I havn't gotten a chance to play with it yet.

Anyway, successfully replaced the cursor with a single pixel white dot, and couldn't be happier. Thanks to everybody that helped out

[GasMAster]

Thought I'd follow up on this. I asked the question about the cursor at a WHOLE bunch of places. HowardC pointed me to the issue (the logon uses its own cursors), and a mod on neowin.net let me know that you can use the newest version of Tweak UI to copy your current cursor to the logon. Worked like a charm. You can also use it to replace the background color with wallpaper, and it looks like a whole buncha other stuff, too, but I havn't gotten a chance to play with it yet.

Anyway, successfully replaced the cursor with a single pixel white dot, and couldn't be happier. Thanks to everybody that helped out :)[/i]

I am currently experiencing the same problem... I have successfully hidden the mouse cursor in all areas Except the login screen!! I have downloaded TweakXP but can't seem to find where you change the Login Cursor.  Could someone help me out in this area..Thanks in Advance.

[SpamMe]

The app you need is Tweak UI. Here's a link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

[Popcorrin]

can tweakui also be utilized on windows2000 or is there another method to making these changes on windows2000?

[GasMAster]

Thanks for the link, the version of tweakui I had did not have the option i needed.  Problem solve  

[JoeB]

Thanks for all the tips folks..

as far as a good bootscreen replacement app.. I've found the following to be the easiest and most powerful one:

http://www.bootxp.net

It takes care of the color pallet changes and the re-location of the status bar in XP for you automatically!

 I installed a button in my arcade machine under the control panel and mapped ESC (exit) to it in my J-PAC (I ran into problems with player 1 and 2 pressing the start button at the same time! this equals to exit).

I also told MAMEWAH to shutdown after exit (same button).  XP is totally hidden (including mouse cursor).

Now.. only thing left is to figure out how to change the color of the task bar to black!

[SpamMe]

If you add that Shell reg. entry, explorer will not start so there's no taskbar.

[chris_lemasters]

One more question on the shell (and MANY THANKS for this great thread and SpamMe's clear contributions to it!):

While running MameWah as the shell, can I still connect to the machine via XP's remote connect?  That's how I modify that machine.

THANKS!

[Homebrew]

Hey SpamMe, how do you get your tv to display all the bios screens and other stuff on your tv?  Are you using SCART or something?  I use S-Video and all that stuff just rolls on my tv.  I get nothing but a rolling screen until i get into windows.  Its quite annoying.  I assume its because there are no drivers initialized.  Just curious on why yours doesn't have that problem.

-Kevin

[SpamMe]

No idea. I'm using s-video, but it worked just like that without me changing any settings or anything...

[Homebrew]

hmmm.  Your running a Radeo 8500 right?  Maybe thats the difference.  Its gonna drive me crazy trying to figure this out, LoL.

-Kevin