Instant Sheller 0.25 - Released

[Tom Speirs]

5th November 2005 - Version 0.25

-Features complete undo, After settings set, just launch the program again to undo.

-Fixes - Sound not disabled on some systems.

-Sets Desktop background to black

Download it here:

http://tomspeirs.com/gameex/download/instantsheller.zip

[From the GameEx site]

In addition to the guide above I have developed a small application that automates nearly all the process called ItnstantSheller. It allows you to one click shell GameEx or any other front end. It does everything in the guide below automatically apart from change the boot screen and the mouse cursor does show temporarily when windows logs in. Its for Windows XP Only, and requires the .net framework 1.1. It now also features a one click 'Undo'

[headkaze]

This is a great program, works well with GameEx. I have made a Mame boot logo to go with this program. Download BootLogo and open the Boot.bmp included in the attached zip file. Alternatively, you can use the Boot_blank.bmp to have no boot logo.

I have also attached a little program which I guess could be an alternative to Instant Sheller called "HideDesktopIcons". You place this program in your Startup folder. Used in conjunction with "Auto-Hide" for the task bar and setting your desktop background to be black with no bg image, it bascially creates a blank desktop. The reason why this can be a little more convenient than Instant Sheller is that you can get access to your desktop icons simply by clicking the "Show Desktop" icon in the Quick Launch Toolbar on the task bar. This is for people who still wish to conduct normal computer business, you still have access to the taskbar and desktop icons, whilst in normal operation they are hidden.

To bring back the icons completely you can just run "HideDesktopIcons -restore" and your icons will show again.

Boot.zip

[emphatic]

I don't understand why you need an extra program to hide your icons. XP can do this, just rightclick on the desktop, choose "sort icons by" and choose "don't show desktop icons". Or is this intended for other Windows versions?

Emph

[headkaze]

If your doing alot of maintenence work, you might like to use the attached program, since clicking the "Show Desktop" icon in quick launch will show the icons, but only until you open another window and the icons will hide again. I guess it's not for everyone, and personally I never knew about that option in the context menu, but I suppose its for people who want them there for just one click of the icon. (Personally, I'm going to use Instant Sheller (once everything is setup on my machine), and see how it goes. If it gets annoying having no instant access to the desktop I may have to try my solution since I am an habitual fiddler of software.

[wrench]

Tom I tried out the instant sheller today on my machine,the first reboot all went as expected.But on subsequent boots I get the logon screen.Any thoughts? I selected hide startup,shutdowndown screens and set auto login,and set background to black.Luckily the undo changes button worked.

[Tom Speirs]

Tom I tried out the instant sheller today on my machine,the first reboot all went as expected.But on subsequent boots I get the logon screen.Any thoughts? I selected hide startup,shutdowndown screens and set auto login,and set background to black.Luckily the undo changes button worked.

Thanks for checking it out wrench, and reporting the issue. Ill look into it, but I am glad the Undo is working as it should. I think that feature alone makes it a cool app.

Ill get it fixed.

[headkaze]

Hey Tom, perhaps you can add an option in Instant Sheller to launch GameEx instead of the shell. That way you could add a .lnk to explorer.exe in GameEx which will launch the shell if you need it. Seems like a better way to do things since you can always instantly get the desktop if you need to do some maintenance. Or people could have LaunchOnExit=explorer.exe and the shell will load upon exiting GameEx.

Courtesy Random24 in a thread on the Build Your Own Arcade Controls forums.

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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 GameEx, the shell entry may be "C:\Program Files\GameEx\GameEx.exe". 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.)

[headkaze]

I've just tried setting up GameEx to load as the Shell instead of explorer.exe and when I exit GameEx I use LaunchOnExit=explorer.exe. It works great, apart from one problem... GameEx for some reason waits for the process to end. Therefore GameEx is still running in the background after launching the shell, so when you shutdown outside of GameEx you get the message "End Program - GameEx.exe". Why does GameEx wait for the LaunchOnExit process to end? Obviously it should just launch whatever and exit. Can you please fix this Tom?

Currently a "quick hack" solution is to automatically kill processes instantly using the following registry edits:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks=1

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\WaitToKillAppTimeout=0

You must be using WaitForSingleObject(hHandle, INFINITE) to wait for the process launched on exit to end. There should be no waiting when launching this process.

[Tom Speirs]

I've just tried setting up GameEx to load as the Shell instead of explorer.exe and when I exit GameEx I use LaunchOnExit=explorer.exe. It works great, apart from one problem... GameEx for some reason waits for the process to end. Therefore GameEx is still running in the background after launching the shell, so when you shutdown outside of GameEx you get the message "End Program - GameEx.exe". Why does GameEx wait for the LaunchOnExit process to end? Obviously it should just launch whatever and exit. Can you please fix this Tom?

Currently a "quick hack" solution is to automatically kill processes instantly using the following registry edits:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\AutoEndTasks=1

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop\WaitToKillAppTimeout=0

You must be using WaitForSingleObject(hHandle, INFINITE) to wait for the process launched on exit to end. There should be no waiting when launching this process.

Theres no need for a fix or registry hack. Theres actually a launch on on exit 'dont wait' setting in GameEx. Just use that. Its under tweaks performance inf the config app..

Cheers.

[bkenobi]

I am trying to get GameEx to lauch a batch file that will turn off my TV (vi WinLIRC) prior to quitting the FE and shutting down the computer. But, it always quits the FE and shuts down the computer before it gets a chance to run/finish running the batch file. I have found that I can put the shutdown command in the batch file so the TV will shut off prior to turning off the machine, but GameEx still quits before the command is run. The result is that I see the windows desktop prior to the TV turning off.

What should I be using to accomplish this task?