Can turning off the PC without shutdown damage windows?

[Brewser]

I have my cab setup to just use the powerstrip to turn the cab on and off. Everything seems fine so far with Win XP, but today I booted and Mamewah lost all it's setting in the .ini file. I reconstructed everything and then copied my mame directory with Mamewah to a backup incase this happens again. Have others had this problem? Any way to prevent?

[Fat_Trucker]

If you are using MameWah why not just use the built in exit and shut down option from the menu?.

[jcrouse]

Depending on your motherboard an bios you may be able to change the settings in the bios for a Soft Shutdown. When you press the power button on the PC it wil automatically shutdown windows and then power off the PC. I just use a player control button, hidden on top of the cabinet, that I spliced into the PC power button, it's low voltage and just shorts the system. Then you could use a Smart strip that has relays built in and everythin else will automaticall shutdown when the pc turns off. When it's time to power up the same button turns everythin on. Check out the Smart Strip here: http://www.bitsltd.net/SmartStrip/

Good Luck,
John

[nipsmg]

This is EXACTLY what I did also.

Get a bits limited smart strip.

Almost every newer computer/bios/motherboard support soft shutdown.
I wired a happs horizontal pushbutton to the underside of my CP.  Same thing.  Tap the button, windows shuts down, and everything else in the cabinet goes off.  Tap again, everything goes on.  It's excellent