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Boot skin and start up issues
Marky_1979:
Hi guys iv been looking around and seen a lot of mame machines that boot up into a fake loading screen and then straight into Mame making it look as if its not a pc using windows. I know that boot skin program is used and iv managed to get that working to a degree only problem is that when I turn on pc it goes to boot skin then to a windows welcome logo and then it loads up something for a few minutes all the time showing my desk top and mouse cursor therefore making the whole proccess pointless. Can you guys help speed up the process and remove my problem.
I placed my mame start up exe in the start up folder so that its the first thing to load up. The whole process takes a few minutes where on videos Iv seen it all boot up and happens in a matter of seconds.
Hope you guys can help me out with this one.
urbecrisch:
I'm in the same boat. Curious to what others do.
tba:
ya i had that problem too, i replaced the bios boot screen and the windows start up screens but there was that nagging "windows welcome" screen.
the answer is simple, replace the windows GUI with a custom shell (i made all that up so it is probably nonsense sounding) anyways the answer to all your questions can be found on this page:
http://www.gameex.net/Community/InstantSheller/tabid/73/Default.aspx
good luck, i used the program and it worked great for me, no windows, just a slight flicker of a cursor for about .5 - 1 second... i can live with that.
FrizzleFried:
I had issues shelling myself...so I went to the BYOAC wiki and looked up how to hide windows. With some registry tweaks and changing my mouse cursor to a single pixel all I get ab boot up now is the blackified start "bar" for about 1 second...that is it. I've tried turning off the bar, no go...
Start here:
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Hiding_Windows
Fozzy The Bear:
I tried hiding windows on a Win98 setup. It works better with that than it does on WinXP.
To be honest I really don't much see the point for my own personal use. I already know there's a PC inside the cabinet. So does everybody else that comes round, because most of the time they're so curious about it that I end up opening the cabinet up so that they can see what makes it all work.
The only time I can see it being a real problem is in a commercial environment where you wouldn't want the public to be aware of it. That said, that would of course be illegal to do with Mame (Ahem Ahem Cough Cough).
The fact is that more and more real world arcade machines actually run under either Windows, or a derivative of Linux. Mostly because it's a very cheap way for commercial manufacturers to build an arcade machine. $1000 worth of case and components that they then charge arcade operators between $5000 and $25,000 for. It also makes the hardware much more adaptable allowing the release of many games using the very same basic hardware.
Every day I see windows boot screens and Linux start-up command files, pop up on the machines in the arcade, before they boot into the actual game they're running. So, personally for me anyway, seeing windows boot-up before the launcher doesn't look in any way to be wrong. Personal choice I suppose.
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
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