How to make Windows boot up look invisible?

[Negativecreep0]

Ok guys I am running windows xp, I wanna have my arcade cab boot up straight to one of those front ends like Mame Wah. What are the settings I have to change in win.ini and other windows files so that it bypasses the Windows logo screens, and starts up one of these front ends right away on startup. Also is there a way to not have screenshots in Mame wah and have the list be in the middle of the screen rather than to the left of the screen?

thanks for your help guys.

[SpamMe]

1) There are a few threads about this, here's one: http://www.arcadecontrols.org/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=11894

2) Check out the mamewah layout editor, there shouldn't be any problem doing that.

[TalkingOctopus]

I used this program to change my windows xp bootscreen.

http://www.belchfire.net/~userxp/indexbe.htm

[papaschtroumpf]

download link down  

[Cameronj]

Yeah bummer that the link is down. I was just about to download one of these utilities.

Hopefully the link comes back up soon.

Cameron

[TalkingOctopus]

download link down  

DOH!  Sorry about that.  It was an excellent program.  It worked well and was very simple to use.

[Cameronj]

Just send an email to the guy and he will send you the binary.

Cameron

[grafixmonkey]

Maybe you could also hack an egg timer to only turn your screen on after, say, 3 minutes from the main power going on?  

It's not the most elegant fix but it'd be funny!  


Oh just thought of something else.  What if you told Windows that its gui executable was the frontend executable, instead of explorer.exe?  I did this once to give Win98 a new gui that looked more like a linux OS, back when I had time to be that nerdy.  Anyway, I don't think explorer is necessary for running windows - unless you need something in the startup folder or something that runs on boot from the registry.  I don't think those would start up if you replaced the gui.

[Odonadon]

You can replace the Shell, but that won't get rid of the loading screen.  In XP, you have to use one of the utilities available on belchfire.  M$ has made changing it more difficult in XP, and then again in SP1

OD

[crkoa]

I use a program called bootxp to change the startup screen. I think it's a great program. You can find it at www.bootxp.net

Check it out

[Stormy151]

Is there one that will work for Win 2k?  All I see on the pages is mention of XP...

Thanks!