[RESOLVED] Launching PinballX from Windows start

[Scooby1]

After switching to VPX exclusive full screen mode for smoother game play, I noticed when PinballX launched from my Windows 7 startup, it would launch, but then hide itself in the Windows task bar. I could click on it from the task bar and it would run as normal, but I wanted to find a way for Pinballx to open and stay open upon starting Windows (I previously had PinballX start at Windows startup without issue). 

So, in my trial and errors, I now can  no longer even get Pinballx to open when Windows boots up. My system opens to the desktop and I need to click PinballX to open it. 

Can someone please let me know what settings to change in order to have PinballX launch when Windows starts?

I already have the option set to YES in PinballX settings for it to open in Windows startup in the settings. 

There must be some other options I changed for this function to stop working (and to reverse and get it working again). 

Thanks in advance for any help you guys can provide. 

[Scooby1]

Update: I can now get PinballX to launch at Windows startup, however once open, I can only see the playfield screen.  I can flip through the table selections and launch tables to play, but the backglass and DMD do not show up while in PinballX upon Windows startup.

If I close Pinballx and the reopen with mouse clicks, it runs fine and I see all three of my screens.  Also, if I launch a table (even though the backglass and DMD monitors are blank in Pinballx), the table loads fine and all three screen are on and work properly.  Once I return to PinballX when I close that first table, all three screens are on as normal...but then after a few seconds, Pinballx sometimes gets minimized to the Windows task bar.

This all used to work for me with no issues, however I'm lost here and don't know what to try next?  Any help is very much appreciated.

[rablack97]

have you tried instantsheller for win 7? try that program win pbx as your executable.

the option to boot on startup in pbx is not very clean as it shows the desktop before booting into the actual software. so disable that and use instantsheller.

[Scooby1]

rablack97,

Thanks for the reply.  I finally had some time to test this a bit more and even though PinballX launches now on startup I just selected it to YES in the PinballX settings, I still only see the playfield screen.  Sometimes PinballX minimizes itself in the taskbar again.  This is mind boggling, since I had it working for over a year perfectly and the only thing I changed is VPX to run in exclusive fullscreen mode.  

As for using Instant sheller, I've always stayed away from shelling since I don't know enough about it to get my system out of trouble, if something goes wrong.  That said and after reading the instructions on the Instantsheller/GameEx site, are all of those steps really necessary still or is there a more straight forward way of installing and setting up the sheller?

Short of this, I'm stuck with not having PinballX load on startup.  Instead, I'd unfortunately need to keep a mouse near the cab and manually click open the program each time.

[Kustom Kid]

Have you tried Launcher X written by our own Adultery? It works quite well. I used it for a good while before I switched to Steam Big Picture mode.

 

If you want to see why the program is losing focus Focus Spy written by Stigzler should help with that.

[Scooby1]

Thanks for the replies.  After messing around with Launcher X as well as most settings in PinballX, my system is once again booting into PinballX from Windows startup (and I can see all 3 screens again).  The setting that was causing all this frustration was in the Display Settings.  I must have changed Full Screen Windowed to NO.  This setting needs to be set to YES.  Now, everything seems to be working once again.

I will say that when this setting was set to NO, flipping between tables in PinballX was a lot snappier than it is now.  I'll still trade that for all 3 screens working on bootup, but I wanted to note the differences.