Win 8 begin at startup

Hi,

I've experimented with XBMC as a shell. As I am using iMON I needed a little work around that seems to do the job for about 90% ..

As I only have Win 8 Std. I needed to change the registry directly (no gpedit). So I added the following to the registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"Shell"="C:\\temp\\xbmc.cmd"



The XBMC.CMD contains the following:

start "iMON" "C:\Program Files\Soundgraph\imon.exe"
start "XBMC" "C:\Program Files\XBMC\xbmc.exe"


Works fine so far. The only problem is, that iMON's "Media Info" seems to work only if the explorer.exe is started (which is not the case in this configuration). That results in no media info in the front view (VFD) of iMON.

I tried to add a "start" "Explorer" ... " line but that brought back the metro screen and left XBMC in the background...
I also tried a delay (tested with different setting - the longest with about 30 seconds between iMON and XBMC) but didn't work either.

@patseguin: Can you link that posting here?

(2012-11-23 17:23)waltermalter Wrote:  Hi,

I've experimented with XBMC as a shell. As I am using iMON I needed a little work around that seems to do the job for about 90% ..

As I only have Win 8 Std. I needed to change the registry directly (no gpedit). So I added the following to the registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"Shell"="C:\\temp\\xbmc.cmd"



The XBMC.CMD contains the following:

start "iMON" "C:\Program Files\Soundgraph\imon.exe"
start "XBMC" "C:\Program Files\XBMC\xbmc.exe"


Works fine so far. The only problem is, that iMON's "Media Info" seems to work only if the explorer.exe is started (which is not the case in this configuration). That results in no media info in the front view (VFD) of iMON.

I tried to add a "start" "Explorer" ... " line but that brought back the metro screen and left XBMC in the background...
I also tried a delay (tested with different setting - the longest with about 30 seconds between iMON and XBMC) but didn't work either.

@patseguin: Can you link that posting here?

have you tried this http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=136798 it has support for iMON

I've got my xbmc starting up now and can also drop back to explorer with exit.

Oddly I had to create a 2nd user before this started to work correctly :/

(2012-11-23 17:31)lukedearden Wrote:  have you tried this http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=136798 it has support for iMON

I've got my xbmc starting up now and can also drop back to explorer with exit.

Oddly I had to create a 2nd user before this started to work correctly :/

Nope, not so far. In another tread it's said not to work with windows 8 unless you use XBMC as a shell. The description of XBMC Launcher claims not to use the shell function if you are running iMon - so I thought the Launcher will not work for me.
Are you running it on Win 8 with iMon?

Cheers,
Walter

http://www.7tutorials.com/how-boot-deskt...art-screen

I did this, then created a task to launch xbmc 30 seconds later. Slow but works

I don't understand why you guys are having problems. If you have XBMC set to 'full screen' mode NOT 'full screen window' and drop it in the startup folder, it will launch at startup and WILL bring focus to the desktop, just give it a minute after windows boots.

Also, it's best to run XBMC as administrator, so you can write to the file system. In order to do this, right click on the XBMC exe and go to properties, Compatibility, run as administrator, then save.

windows has trouble booting some exe's as administrator at startup. To work around this, just create a .bat file In notepad with something like below, and add the bat file to the startup folder instead.

Windows 32 bit:

Cd "c:\Program files\XBMC\"
XBMC.exe
exit

Windows 64 bit:

Cd "c:\Program files (x86)\XBMC\"
XBMC.exe
exit

Cheers,
Loggio

(2012-11-25 21:25)loggio Wrote:  I don't understand why you guys are having problems. If you have XBMC set to 'full screen' mode NOT 'full screen window' and drop it in the startup folder, it will launch at startup and WILL bring focus to the desktop, just give it a minute after windows boots.

Also, it's best to run XBMC as administrator, so you can write to the file system. In order to do this, right click on the XBMC exe and go to properties, Compatibility, run as administrator, then save.

windows has trouble booting some exe's as administrator at startup. To work around this, just create a .bat file In notepad with something like below, and add the bat file to the startup folder instead.

Windows 32 bit:

Cd "c:\Program files\XBMC\"
XBMC.exe
exit

Windows 64 bit:

Cd "c:\Program files (x86)\XBMC\"
XBMC.exe
exit

Cheers,
Loggio

@Loggio: What you decsribe is true for any Windows up to Windows 7. Windows 8 left you in the Metro Screen, regardless how you set up your XBMC (Fullscreen or window). If you use tools like "Skip Metro" etc. Windows 8 start with the desktop and it also shows XBMC but you cant controll it with your remote or your keyboard. You need a mouse to get the focus to XBMC. To avoid this, the easiest way is to use XBMC as a shell. The problem is, that iMon needs the explorer to provide it's full potential. Because in this constallation XBMC is your shell, there is no explorer :-(
Starting iMon manually (like I did in my batch file) will at least provide the remote control working. But it leaks Media Info Support for frontview. That's the problem.

I have my old Win7 installation parallel on the same hardware. In Win 7 you do a autologin and a little batch in the autostart folder and everything works like a charm ... in Win 8 it sees that you need to live with compromisses. Right now I'm not shure wether I go for a little faster boot up and a little smoother media playback or for the stable and easy to set up "old fashon" ...


Cheers,
Walter

Again... Not sure why you guys are having issues. I run windows 8 pro and have been since developer preview. And doing what I described above works fine for me. Windows boots to metro, then xbmc starts up and brings itself in focus... Just like it did in xp, vista and win7

I was able to boot into XBMC without problems using this guide:

http://cybernetnews.com/xbmc-run-boot-xb...windows-8/

The only reason I reverted back to the original bootup method was due to intermittent audio issues (which I JUST made a new post about in this forum) and the process of exiting back to the Windows8 desktop to re-launch XBMC to fix the audio problems was too time consuming.

I'm hoping they add a quick "Exit to Win8 desktop" shortcut key in the next XMBC release....The normal Windows button doesn't seem to work when you boot directly into XMBC...