Hi,
I have not seen a thread like this in a while, so I thought I would post my trials and tribulations on turning my HPTC into a set-top-box like configuration. For me, this was the key to making it usable for my wife and guests.... (this was originally explained at the mainlobby forums I thought it could use a wider audience, and I'ld like some feedback)
I'll start the thread (more later) by discussing how my machine boots. A regular windows XP boot is very lengthy, may require a login (for mapped drives and remote desktop), and looks like a computer - doesn't look very professional to guests.
Here's what I did:
First
you need to change the boot screen. The windows XP login is sparse, but isn't what you expect to see in a professional installation. A very easy solution is a shareware program called Bootxp available here ( http://www.bootxp.net/download.htm ). this will allow you to change the bootscreen to any bitmap With 640x480 Pixels and 16 Colors. The program itself will convert any graphic to the right format, but I would either start with one someone else has done, or tweak the original yourself in photoshop to make sure the color palette is correct.
Here are some good pre-made boot screens that work well for HTPC use:
THX Logo: http://www.bootxp.net/download.php?id=532
Star Wars II: http://www.bootxp.net/download.php?id=409
insde the matrix: http://www.bootxp.net/download.php?id=71
T2: http://www.bootxp.net/download.php?id=45
There are a lot of bootscreens already made to suite almost everyone's taste. These were just examples.
Second:
If you have set a password in XP (which I would recommend for sharing and remote desktop), you need to setup auto-login to bypass the welcome screen and get things going...
You can hack the registry, but here is a much easier way:
1. click on "Start" - then click on "Run" - and type
"control userpasswords2"
2. click OK
3. On the Users tab, clear the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" check box and click "Apply".
4. A dialog will appear that asks you what user name and password should be used to logon automatically, just click "OK".
Next, you need to get rid of the logon screen.....
go to Control Panel / User Accounts, and click ?Change the way users log on or off?, and uncheck both ?Use the Welcome Screen? and ?Use Fast User Switching?.
Here's where things get tricky - If you really want this to behave like a set top box, you never want to see the windows desktop. Actually, you never want to see explorer....
First, create two accounts on your machine name one HTPC, and the other administrator (or whatever you would like).
Follow my previous instructions on making the HPTC user automatically boot up and log - in, bypassing all of the screens as the HTPC user..
You will need two more shareware programs:
shellon version 3 or higher ( http://www.dx13.co.uk/sov3/index.html )
atyourservice ( http://www.prismmicrosys.com/atyours...vice-index.htm )
shellon is a GUI program that will let you automatically load a different shell then explorer.exe on boot up. What makes this program nice, is you can define different shells by user (and define a user by use). So, in my case, I define the user htpc's shell to be mainlobby.exe, while keeping the administrator shell to explorer.exe If you need explorer access to the machine, either logout (ctrl-alt-delete method), or login remotely to administer the box.
To get your background programs up and running without explorer (no more startup folder), atyourservice can make any application into a service. It's gui based, and super easy.
After making the above changes, my machine loads up all sofware necessary via atyourservice (girder, soundman, smartie, etc...) and goes directly into mainlobby. Mainlobby and/or girder can then start/run third party applications just as they always did. Press the DVD button on my remote, and my Xcard player starts, then Holo3d app starts and moves to top.
Whew.... if you've made it this far, your are pretty hard core, and I'd like some feedback - what alternatives are there to the programs I'm using, besides other shells?
The last part is where I got kind of wacky. For various reasons, I have ACPI turned off on my machine. This means i can really only turn on or off the machine, no standby or hibernate.
(just a quick note - if you have a modern bios, most of them will allow you to power - on the machine via a key-press. I use a PS/2 an ir keyboard, and have my remote control send a learned key-press - machine starts right up)
My boot time is kind of slow. Lot's of memory (1.5 gigs), two raid cards (Abit ic7-g max), and lot's of drivers to load.
To make the HTPC truely "turn on and run", I bought a rocketdrive ( http://www.cenatek.com/product_rocketdrive.cfm ), which is a PCI card with an onboard battery backup, and outside power connection which can take 4 gigs of sdram - more than enough for an XP load and the entire HTPC installed applications. This left my main drives free for a 1) 4 gig partition to "ghost" the rocketdrive just in case, and 2) gobs and gobs of HDTV time shifted material, ripped dvd's and music.
I bought a 2 gig used rocketdrive on ebay for $150......
I first had a heck of a time using the rocketdrive as the main installation drive as windows would never see it when you booted up from the installation cdrom. I finally made a 2 gig partition on my main drive then cloned it to the rocketdrive.
Here are my results:
Boot time from cold start: 36 seconds
Boot time from end of Bios & raid update: 4 seconds
yes, my bios and 2 raid controllers take 32 seconds to come up - I'll be working on this next...
boot time from end of bios to first mainlobby screen: 8 seconds. Seems mainlobby takes a bit to load, even from a ramdrive.
Hopes this helps others striving for HTPC perfection.
I have not seen a thread like this in a while, so I thought I would post my trials and tribulations on turning my HPTC into a set-top-box like configuration. For me, this was the key to making it usable for my wife and guests.... (this was originally explained at the mainlobby forums I thought it could use a wider audience, and I'ld like some feedback)
I'll start the thread (more later) by discussing how my machine boots. A regular windows XP boot is very lengthy, may require a login (for mapped drives and remote desktop), and looks like a computer - doesn't look very professional to guests.
Here's what I did:
First
you need to change the boot screen. The windows XP login is sparse, but isn't what you expect to see in a professional installation. A very easy solution is a shareware program called Bootxp available here ( http://www.bootxp.net/download.htm ). this will allow you to change the bootscreen to any bitmap With 640x480 Pixels and 16 Colors. The program itself will convert any graphic to the right format, but I would either start with one someone else has done, or tweak the original yourself in photoshop to make sure the color palette is correct.
Here are some good pre-made boot screens that work well for HTPC use:
THX Logo: http://www.bootxp.net/download.php?id=532
Star Wars II: http://www.bootxp.net/download.php?id=409
insde the matrix: http://www.bootxp.net/download.php?id=71
T2: http://www.bootxp.net/download.php?id=45
There are a lot of bootscreens already made to suite almost everyone's taste. These were just examples.
Second:
If you have set a password in XP (which I would recommend for sharing and remote desktop), you need to setup auto-login to bypass the welcome screen and get things going...
You can hack the registry, but here is a much easier way:
1. click on "Start" - then click on "Run" - and type
"control userpasswords2"
2. click OK
3. On the Users tab, clear the "Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer" check box and click "Apply".
4. A dialog will appear that asks you what user name and password should be used to logon automatically, just click "OK".
Next, you need to get rid of the logon screen.....
go to Control Panel / User Accounts, and click ?Change the way users log on or off?, and uncheck both ?Use the Welcome Screen? and ?Use Fast User Switching?.
Here's where things get tricky - If you really want this to behave like a set top box, you never want to see the windows desktop. Actually, you never want to see explorer....
First, create two accounts on your machine name one HTPC, and the other administrator (or whatever you would like).
Follow my previous instructions on making the HPTC user automatically boot up and log - in, bypassing all of the screens as the HTPC user..
You will need two more shareware programs:
shellon version 3 or higher ( http://www.dx13.co.uk/sov3/index.html )
atyourservice ( http://www.prismmicrosys.com/atyours...vice-index.htm )
shellon is a GUI program that will let you automatically load a different shell then explorer.exe on boot up. What makes this program nice, is you can define different shells by user (and define a user by use). So, in my case, I define the user htpc's shell to be mainlobby.exe, while keeping the administrator shell to explorer.exe If you need explorer access to the machine, either logout (ctrl-alt-delete method), or login remotely to administer the box.
To get your background programs up and running without explorer (no more startup folder), atyourservice can make any application into a service. It's gui based, and super easy.
After making the above changes, my machine loads up all sofware necessary via atyourservice (girder, soundman, smartie, etc...) and goes directly into mainlobby. Mainlobby and/or girder can then start/run third party applications just as they always did. Press the DVD button on my remote, and my Xcard player starts, then Holo3d app starts and moves to top.
Whew.... if you've made it this far, your are pretty hard core, and I'd like some feedback - what alternatives are there to the programs I'm using, besides other shells?
The last part is where I got kind of wacky. For various reasons, I have ACPI turned off on my machine. This means i can really only turn on or off the machine, no standby or hibernate.
(just a quick note - if you have a modern bios, most of them will allow you to power - on the machine via a key-press. I use a PS/2 an ir keyboard, and have my remote control send a learned key-press - machine starts right up)
My boot time is kind of slow. Lot's of memory (1.5 gigs), two raid cards (Abit ic7-g max), and lot's of drivers to load.
To make the HTPC truely "turn on and run", I bought a rocketdrive ( http://www.cenatek.com/product_rocketdrive.cfm ), which is a PCI card with an onboard battery backup, and outside power connection which can take 4 gigs of sdram - more than enough for an XP load and the entire HTPC installed applications. This left my main drives free for a 1) 4 gig partition to "ghost" the rocketdrive just in case, and 2) gobs and gobs of HDTV time shifted material, ripped dvd's and music.
I bought a 2 gig used rocketdrive on ebay for $150......
I first had a heck of a time using the rocketdrive as the main installation drive as windows would never see it when you booted up from the installation cdrom. I finally made a 2 gig partition on my main drive then cloned it to the rocketdrive.
Here are my results:
Boot time from cold start: 36 seconds
Boot time from end of Bios & raid update: 4 seconds
yes, my bios and 2 raid controllers take 32 seconds to come up - I'll be working on this next...
boot time from end of bios to first mainlobby screen: 8 seconds. Seems mainlobby takes a bit to load, even from a ramdrive.
Hopes this helps others striving for HTPC perfection.