Adding PC games to PBX?

[tabascoman77]

Because I just don't know when to quit, how does one add PC games to PBX?

Here's my config:

The actual game is inside a separate folder. I made a shortcut and put it in a folder called PC Games which resides inside my "roms" folder. I've tried erasing ".lnk" and just going with the ROMPATH/ROMFILE parameter. I figure I'm missing something in the Executable field...but I can't just put the game name in there (that won't work anyhow), because I'm trying to make this universal to all PC games.

It looks like this:

ACTUAL GAME PATH: C:\vPinball\GameFolder\Game.exe
SHORTCUT: C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games\ShortcutForGame.lnk

Log and INI attached.

I assume this is an easy solution and I am just clueless.

log.txt PinballX.ini

[Mike_da_Spike]

What if you move the section from Parameters entirely into the executable? What would that lead to?

If that doesn’t work (possibly to a limitation in how PinballX starts the process), you could try setting Explorer.exe as the executable and then attempt one of the options.

• explorer.exe
• %WINDIR%\explorer.exe
• C:\Windows\explorer.exe

and keep your parameters the same as in your screenshot

[tabascoman77]

So far...first option:

23:06:07.97  6/11/2026:  C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games\"[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE].lnk".exe 
23:06:07.98  6/11/2026:  An error occurred trying to start process '"[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE].lnk".exe' with working directory 'C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games'. The system cannot find the file specified.

[tabascoman77]

Second option (using "explorer.exe" in the Executable field is odd...

It launches, runs -- but kicks back to PBX...but the game keeps running so PBX's menus and the game run at the same time as if PBX thinks there was a failure.

Log:

23:08:34.42  6/11/2026:  C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games\explorer.exe "C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games\Jaws.lnk"

There aren't any errors...but that...sorta works? Almost there.

[tabascoman77]

Third option (%WINDIR%\explorer.exe) is a bust. 

Log:

23:11:34.75  6/11/2026:  C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games\%WINDIR%\explorer.exe "C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games\Jaws.lnk"
23:11:34.76  6/11/2026:  An error occurred trying to start process '%WINDIR%\explorer.exe' with working directory 'C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games'. The system cannot find the file specified.

[tabascoman77]

Last option (C:\Windows\explorer.exe) is the same as the second one...launches, dies, kicks back to PBX...but the game actually is launched, runs, and continues to run in the background as PBX's menus and backglass run.

LOG:

23:13:18.41  6/11/2026:  Working directory set to: C:\Windows
23:13:18.41  6/11/2026:  C:\Windows\C:\Windows\explorer.exe "C:\vPinball\roms\PC Games\Jaws.lnk"

[tabascoman77]

Ok, so...

I configured it three different ways using each of the three you mentioned in the "Process to monitor" box:

I am just giving the above as an example. All three of your options can go to the Process box and it ALL brings the following result.

All three options will launch the game AND quiet PBX and make it go away...however, it refuses to quit when you press Escape. 

What happens is the game will continue running but PBX will be like "Oh, you want me again? Ok." And it will resume running...while the game continues to run in the background.

I feel like I'm close.

[Draco1962]

For killing the games on exit, have you tried ALT-F4?

[Mike_da_Spike]

It's because the ".lnk" file contains the executable.

Pinballx closes the executable, but launching it via explirer, it will close explorer, not the program in the link.

You know that PinballX is mention to launch pinball emulators, right ? 🤣

One other thing : try to set the exename at the description and not sure if it works but set [DESCRIPTION]  in the process to monitor

If that still doesn't work, you could look Tom in his blue eyes, make a puppy face, and ask him to create a new system type for .lnk files. He can extract the programname and params from the .lnk, launch it, and monitor that exe.

[Draco1962]

3 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

It's because the ".lnk" file contains the executable.

Pinballx closes the executable, but launching it via explirer, it will close explorer, not the program in the link.

You know that PinballX is mention to launch pinball emulators, right ? 🤣

One other thing : try to set the exename at the description and not sure if it works but set [DESCRIPTION]  in the process to monitor

If that still doesn't work, you could look Tom in his blue eyes, make a puppy face, and ask him to create a new system type for .lnk files. He can extract the programname and params from the .lnk, launch it, and monitor that exe.

We use .lnk files easily within GameEx, so if a code change has to be made, I think that PinballX is close enough in code base for Tom to make that happen—just my opinion based upon years of watching the magic become reality.

Maybe on launch of the .lnk, PinballX can be programmed to peak within the .lnk file "target" path being invoked to look for an .exe, .ahk, or .bat file (some old PC games launch from them still)?

[Draco1962]

P.S. Would this be a Feature Request?

[scutters]

25 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

One other thing : try to set the exename at the description and not sure if it works but set [DESCRIPTION]  in the process to monitor

That might work (if process to monitor accepts the pinballx parameter names). It shouldn't be set to Explorer!

25 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

If that still doesn't work, you could look Tom in his blue eyes, make a puppy face, and ask him to create a new system type for .lnk files. He can extract the programname and params from the .lnk, launch it, and monitor that exe.

11 minutes ago, Draco1962 said:

We use .lnk files easily within GameEx, so if a code change has to be made, I think that PinballX is close enough in code base for Tom to make that happen—just my opinion based upon years of watching the magic become reality.

Failing a change to PinballX to extract the process name the lnk file uses, something like this might work as a launch after;

Parameters used are a powershell command to get the actual exe and kill it;

powershell -command "$t = (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell).CreateShortcut('[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE].lnk').TargetPath; Stop-Process -Name ([System.IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($t)) -Force"

(note, even if that does work it make not be a clean way to close the pc game!)

[tabascoman77]

6 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

It's because the ".lnk" file contains the executable.

Pinballx closes the executable, but launching it via explirer, it will close explorer, not the program in the link.

You know that PinballX is mention to launch pinball emulators, right ? 🤣

One other thing : try to set the exename at the description and not sure if it works but set [DESCRIPTION]  in the process to monitor

If that still doesn't work, you could look Tom in his blue eyes, make a puppy face, and ask him to create a new system type for .lnk files. He can extract the programname and params from the .lnk, launch it, and monitor that exe.

Ha! Yes, I know PBX's main mission is to launch pinball emulators...but my arcade happens to be in cab format...

You mentioned doing that in process...I kinda want this to be universal to all games. If I name the actual game EXE in the process, that kinda defeats the purpose.

One workaround 9which does work) is simply making an entry for each game using the EXE.

6 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

We use .lnk files easily within GameEx, so if a code change has to be made, I think that PinballX is close enough in code base for Tom to make that happen—just my opinion based upon years of watching the magic become reality.

Maybe on launch of the .lnk, PinballX can be programmed to peak within the .lnk file "target" path being invoked to look for an .exe, .ahk, or .bat file (some old PC games launch from them still)?

I thought about creating a BAT file to run it from command line...just not sure it would work.

7 hours ago, scutters said:

That might work (if process to monitor accepts the pinballx parameter names). It shouldn't be set to Explorer!

Failing a change to PinballX to extract the process name the lnk file uses, something like this might work as a launch after;

Parameters used are a powershell command to get the actual exe and kill it;

powershell -command "$t = (New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell).CreateShortcut('[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE].lnk').TargetPath; Stop-Process -Name ([System.IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($t)) -Force"

(note, even if that does work it make not be a clean way to close the pc game!)

Yeah...not sure if I wanna do this, scutters. I don't want to force a program to shut each time. 

[Draco1962]

It wouldn't work as it would still run because PinballX doesn't know what to monitor for running/closing. My reference was only to the file types to monitor from within the target path of the shortcut file. 

Scutters would at least, if it works, be game agnostic and work on anything that launches the game in the target path of the shortcut. Some other programs launched by PinballX require some sort of batch file to run a Taskkill command via the Launch After that does essentially the same thing. While it may not be pretty, it may just get the job done until something could be addressed within PinballX to do the same process. Wouldn't hurt to try.

[tabascoman77]

2 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

It wouldn't work as it would still run because PinballX doesn't know what to monitor for running/closing. My reference was only to the file types to monitor from within the target path of the shortcut file. 

Scutters would at least, if it works, be game agnostic and work on anything that launches the game in the target path of the shortcut. Some other programs launched by PinballX require some sort of batch file to run a Taskkill command via the Launch After that does essentially the same thing. While it may not be pretty, it may just get the job done until something could be addressed within PinballX to do the same process. Wouldn't hurt to try.

It definitely wouldn't hurt to try. The issue is that it's going to get a touch convoluted because I have to MMT the game to get it to run on the backglass monitor which means I'd have to write a BAT file to kill the game and go back to the first monitor with MMT.

Interestingly enough, @TerryRed had this same issue ten years ago and I was looking into it today. He had used RocketLauncher in conjunction with PinballX and that seemed to work for him. I might give that a quick spin.

[Draco1962]

1 hour ago, tabascoman77 said:

Interestingly enough, @TerryRed had this same issue ten years ago and I was looking into it today. He had used RocketLauncher in conjunction with PinballX and that seemed to work for him. I might give that a quick spin.

If you get it to work with RocketLauncher, would you mind creating a quick setup guide like you did with TecknoParrot in a new thread? I know it will be a little more involved.

[Mike_da_Spike]

10 hours ago, tabascoman77 said:

Yeah...not sure if I wanna do this, scutters. I don't want to force a program to shut each time.

What do you think that PBX will do, if you press a key ? Thats not a kill, but a ask to shutdown ....
I think I can make a small program, which will read the link file file and try to close the exe it instead of killing it.

 

[tabascoman77]

9 minutes ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

What do you think that PBX will do, if you press a key ? Thats not a kill, but a ask to shutdown ....
I think I can make a small program, which will read the link file file and try to close the exe it instead of killing it.

 

Let me try Terry's method first. 

[tabascoman77]

3 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

If you get it to work with RocketLauncher, would you mind creating a quick setup guide like you did with TecknoParrot in a new thread? I know it will be a little more involved.

Not at all, Draco. I'd love to.

[scutters]

16 hours ago, tabascoman77 said:

Yeah...not sure if I wanna do this, scutters. I don't want to force a program to shut each time. 

You can ask AI to convert that cmd to request a clean exit, and wait a few seconds before killing if still running if you want/need to later.

Hope things go well with Rocket Launcher anyway!

[Mike_da_Spike]

4 hours ago, scutters said:

You can ask AI to convert that cmd to request a clean exit, and wait a few seconds before killing if still running if you want/need to later.

Hope things go well with Rocket Launcher anyway!

Ha,

I did , and this is the one liner !

powershell -command "$t=(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell).CreateShortcut('[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE].lnk').TargetPath;$n=[IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($t);Get-Process $n -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue|%{if($_.MainWindowHandle){$_.CloseMainWindow()}else{Stop-Process $_ -Force}}"

Please try  this as well

[tabascoman77]

6 hours ago, Mike_da_Spike said:

Ha,

I did , and this is the one liner !

powershell -command "$t=(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell).CreateShortcut('[TABLEPATH]\[TABLEFILE].lnk').TargetPath;$n=[IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($t);Get-Process $n -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue|%{if($_.MainWindowHandle){$_.CloseMainWindow()}else{Stop-Process $_ -Force}}"

Please try  this as well

Holy shit. That's going into the Parameters here?

[Draco1962]

2 hours ago, tabascoman77 said:

Holy shit. That's going into the Parameters here?

Ya gonna try it?

[tabascoman77]

4 hours ago, Draco1962 said:

Ya gonna try it?

...yes?...

Even though a piece of code like that looks like an insane glowing part you're supposed to drop into some slot on a fictional mystery machine thing you see in a movie. :)\

[Draco1962]

6 hours ago, tabascoman77 said:

...yes?...

Even though a piece of code like that looks like an insane glowing part you're supposed to drop into some slot on a fictional mystery machine thing you see in a movie. :)\

...and you have top billing in that Sci-Fi Slasher Action flick! Let us know how you get on - your red carpet awaits!