Custom Windows Load for Mame?

[HeadRusch]

Whats the best way to get a Win98 install of Mame running smoothly with a custom MAME loading screen and, preferrably, a way to play an MPG or QTime movie once windows loads...without seeing the player controls, border, etc.

Is there freeware out there that does this?  Can someone steer me in the right direction?  Ic ould put an MPG in the startup folder but I'd wind up seeing the thing start up in a window with all the default controls,e tc, etc.....unless I'm missing something obvious.

[Magnet_Eye]

maybe you can set the options of your player to launch FULL SCREEN always?

[nipsmg]

look at some windows shell replacements.

Try litestep and see if there's a mod to do this.

If not, code something

Should be relatively easy to find source code for a full screen MPEG player, alter it, and have it load on boot.

--NipsMG

[Psyklops]

You can also replace the default shell in Windows so that instead of loading to the desktop it loads up an application of your choosing (such as your front-end).  To do this you can do the following:

For Win9x machines:

Edit c:\windows\system.ini and change the line shell=explorer.exe.  Change the explorer.exe to the executable for your front end.  Save it and restart windows.

For Win2K and XP machines:

Open regedit and change the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon\Shell.  Again change the explorer.exe to the executable for your front end.  You will also probably want to enable the auto-logon feature.  Do that by setting the following keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon\AutoAdminLogon set to 1.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon\DefaultUserName set to the user account you would normally login with.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon\DefaultPassword set to the password for the user account.

These setups will launch the app directly instead of the desktop, so you won't see the TaskBar or Start Menu or desktop icons.  The only issue is if the user quits the application you get returned to a blank desktop (still without the icons, start menu or taskbar, just the background).  But with most FE's having a shutdown PC on exit feature this shouldn't be a problem.

[Minwah]

Dumb question perhaps Psyklops, but how to you get back to 'normal' Windows - ie taskbar etc.?

[BASSOFeeSH]

I got a boot screen utility from http://www.fvip.net/bootxp/

I know it works for 2k & XP, but not sure about 9X.

Give it a try though, plus there's links to a bunch of sites if I remember correctly.

[Lilwolf]

You don't, when you quit the program it will restart windows

[Lilwolf]

You might be able to hotkey explorer.exe in your frontend and have it start windows... then when you exit, it might go back to the frontend.  I haven't tried (but most frontends allow you to single key launch an application)

[Psyklops]

Dumb question perhaps Psyklops, but how to you get back to 'normal' Windows - ie taskbar etc.?

If you need to then you would have to either edit the system.ini file back to explorer.exe for Win9x machine or edit the registry back to explorer.exe for Win2K/XP machines.  Win9x is easy because you can always boot to dos to change the file.  For the 2K/XP machines you would have to use Ctrl-Alt-Del and launch the Task Manager.  Then from the applications tab, click on "New Task...".  This gives you basically the same as clicking on Start->Run.  Type regedit and then make the registry change back and reboot.

[Random24]

I know you were asking about 98 but I thought that some of the other people on this board might find this usefull.  The great thing about this is that with XP you can have multiple users and have just the arcade user have a diferent shell.



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.)

[1UP]

The easiest way to start without seeing windows:

Go to Display Properties in the Control Panel (or right-click on your desktop and choose Properties)

Go to the Screen Saver tab, and click the Settings button under "energy saving features..."

Enable hibernation, and choose to have the computer hibernate when the power button is pressed.

Start your frontend.  Press the power button when you're done playing (after exiting MAME back to the frontend) and your computer saves everything in memory (including running programs like the FE) and shuts down.

Next time you start up your cab, it will load straight back to the FE, without showing anything but the "resuming windows" screen.  This screen is brief, and can be changed with TweakUI or something similar.