MAMEWAH autostart on XP Bootup?

[aeroflott]

I'm sure this is a simple one...
Just updated to MAME v78 (thanks for the help Minwah) - and whilst there, gave my hard drive a clean up and a defrag.
However, when booting up XP, Mamewah no longer autostarts, its just booting straight to desktop (i.e. normally). I've noticed a bunch of icons have appeared in the taskbar bottom right, that weren't there before. Could someone remind me (in plain English please) how to set up XP so that MAMEWAH will boot automatically when I switch on?
Thanks

T

[Minwah]

I suppose the easiest way is just to drop a shortcut into your Start > Programs > Startup group.

BTW try to disable things that run in the taskbar that you don't need - these can use valuable resources...

[aeroflott]

I suppose the easiest way is just to drop a shortcut into your Start > Programs > Startup group.

BTW try to disable things that run in the taskbar that you don't need - these can use valuable resources...

Hmmm....thats what I thought, and thats what I've done - but its still booting up staright into windows.

Any other ideas?

Ta

T

[Random24]

I have posted this tutorial I wrote a few times now.  Someone may want to add it to the faq section or something.

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 apparently forgot something in my original post.  As found here:

Disabling the blue Welcome screen and startup/shutdown messages:
Change from the default windows XP welcome screen to the older 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.

The really nice thing about htis setup is that if you need to admin the box, all you have to do is logout from the autologin user and then log in as another user. As long as that other user doesn't have the shell setting changed, you will have a normal windows session.

[Minwah]

I have posted this tutorial I wrote a few times now.  Someone may want to add it to the faq section or something.

Thanks Random, I'll have to add that to the (much outdated FAQ)  

[aeroflott]

I tried the "regedit" hack - and got nowhere, it just locked up my PC (I did follow it word for word - tried twice! - honest!). I've system restored so no worries.

So I am left with the same issue. Whatever I do, it just won't autostart.

[Howard_Casto]

The shell string you tyepd in is probably invalid and windoze hung up trying to boot into a progrma it couldn't find.  It could also be that the fe you use has problems running as shell.  I can tell you right now that none of the developers (myself included) really check for this use.