Problem with HideOs.exe

[Robert]

Occasionally, when exiting GameEx, my XP desktop theme is not restored and my desktop remains black. I think it's a problem with the HideOs application. So, I wrote an AutoIt script to change the theme back to the one I use when GameEx exits and that works, but it is annoying because it takes time and you can see it working. So I added an "if...then" statement so that it would only change the theme if it needed to, i.e., if it somehow didn't get changed back the way it was supposed to when GameEx exited. That didn't work, because when the "failure" happens, the registry value that I'm checking does show the correct theme. So, the correct theme is loaded, but it still shows the black background. I used the task manager to make sure that HideOs.exe was not running, but it still shows the black screen. Is there some process I need to kill in order to get the theme to show? What is causing the black screen? I'd appreciate any coding, or other, advice.

[bkenobi]

Tom will probably need a log file in order to see what GameEx is doing/not doing.

[Robert]

Well, it does it randomly (usually after kids have been playing the cab all day, pushing it to the limits), so it might be a while before I can get a log file. But in the meantime, I'm looking for a workaround with an AutoIt script.

  bkenobi said:

Tom will probably need a log file in order to see what GameEx is doing/not doing.

[Brian Hoffman]

  Robert said:

Well, it does it randomly (usually after kids have been playing the cab all day, pushing it to the limits), so it might be a while before I can get a log file. But in the meantime, I'm looking for a workaround with an AutoIt script.

Well, I know in AHK you can do like

Q & S

Process, Close, Hideos.exe

This way when you press q and s it will kill the process.

Is that what you are after?

[bkenobi]

Maybe you could use Brian's suggestion and just press the hotkeys to change the theme if it's wrong?

[Robert]

That would be fine if I'm the one playing on the machine, but if someone else is, they won't know to do that. Plus, something that worked automatically would be more elegant. Here is a way that my problem can be simulated:

1) Launch a mame game from GameEx

2) ctrl-alt-del into the task manager and kill the GameEx process and the Mame process and the HideOs process.

Now, you'll see a black screen on the desktop (this is where I end up sometimes randomly)

But if you go into the correct registry values for current theme, it has the correct, desired theme listed. But, if you go to the display control panel, it lists the theme as "Modified Theme" and if you change it here to the correct them (or do the same thing with my AutoIt script) then the theme is set just fine.

So, I'm almost there. I have a script that will set the correct theme every time GameEx exits, but I only want to run the script when this black screen phenomenon has happened. So, what I need is a way to detect when it has happened. Does anyone know what is causing the screen to remain black when I go through steps 1 and 2 above? If I could detect that that process is still running after GameEx exits, then I could run my script.

[bkenobi]

It sounds like GameEx is just modifying elements rather than applying a theme. If you can check what the background is set to, then you might be able to just fix those specific elements.

EDIT: So I did a quick test and it looks like you could just check the "WallpaperStyle" and "Wallpaper" registry entries to see if you need to run the script. When I have a image set up, it has a path to the image in "Wallpaper" and a "0" value for "WallpaperStyle". When I have a black background the values are blank and "2". Hope that helps a bit.

Here's the path the the relevant values in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

[Robert]

Thanks, bkenobi, that helped a lot and I'm very close to a solution, but there is still one problem.

First, the success: When GamEx exits, I check the value of "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop" and if it is anything other than my desired theme, then I run the code to change the theme. Works like a charm.

But, there is one other thing that HideOs.exe must be doing, because I cannot right-click on the desktop when there is a black screen, and still cannot after my script runs and sets the theme back to my desired theme. However, if I launch GameEx and exit, then it allows me to right-click on the desktop. So there is one other thing that is happening that I need to duplicate in my script. Any ideas???

  Quote

It sounds like GameEx is just modifying elements rather than applying a theme. If you can check what the background is set to, then you might be able to just fix those specific elements.

EDIT: So I did a quick test and it looks like you could just check the "WallpaperStyle" and "Wallpaper" registry entries to see if you need to run the script. When I have a image set up, it has a path to the image in "Wallpaper" and a "0" value for "WallpaperStyle". When I have a black background the values are blank and "2". Hope that helps a bit.

Here's the path the the relevant values in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

[Lawrence]

I get the same behaviour every now and then. At this point I just keep the wallpaper black, as I've given up on restoring the wallpaper each time it happens.

[bkenobi]

This is obviously a problem with the code that needs fixing. My personal opinion (not Tom's), is that the GameEx code needs to address this issue. Anything we come up with in this thread to "fix" the resultant symptoms is not a "solution", it's a hack to make things work. I was interested in helping make it work in the mean time, but I was hoping Tom might see the thread and step in with a suggestion.

Anyway, I don't really have any idea what would keep the mouse from working on the desktop. I'm not even sure what to search the registry for in this case. Sorry, I've got nothing...

EDIT: After sleeping on it, I realized that it's still possible that both of these systems have the same issue due to a setup problem. I still have no clue what could be wrong, but just because two systems have the same problem doesn't mean that it's the core code, it could still be either the way you have GameEx set up or an outside application causing this.

Perhaps you both could post a log when this happens. I know you said it doesn't always happen, but if it's a problem with GameEx, then it would have to be determined what's going on to cause this. If it's an outside app conflicting with HideOS, then you might want to think about what else you have running at the time.

Again, I really don't know. That's my best suggestions though. Good luck!