Windows 7 - Seamless XBMC startup?
#16
I'm pretty much in the same situation as defrag (SSD included Big Grin).

With SSD the PC resumes from standby before my Kuro syncs back to the HDMI output: end result, XBMC appears as soon as the TV is on.
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#17
Robbio85 Wrote:Step 2 only works on Windows 7 Ultimate, Enterprise and Professional! (The group policy object editor is not available in other versions, thanks M$)

Wow, I thought anything more than putting a shortcut in the Startup folder was unnecessarily complicated, but I'd really like to try this now...

My HTPC is running Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition which I got for free from http://www.dreamspark.com. Do you know whether group policy object editor is available on this OS? (I won't be able to test it for quite some time).

Thanks!
NS

edit: apparently the answer is yes. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libra...S.10).aspx
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#18
On xbmc exit - after applying the policy, how do I get it to start explorer.exe if I want to go back into windows screen?
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#19
NotShorty Wrote:Wow, I thought anything more than putting a shortcut in the Startup folder was unnecessarily complicated, but I'd really like to try this now...

My HTPC is running Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition which I got for free from http://www.dreamspark.com. Do you know whether group policy object editor is available on this OS? (I won't be able to test it for quite some time).

Thanks!
NS


Yes, there is a local policy editor in that version of OS.
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#20
Hi Defrag,

You said "I use event ghost to close xbmc on sleep and start it on wake up"

I can get Event ghost to shut down XBMC and then sleep, but how do you get Event ghost to recognise that the PC has just woken up and then re-open XBMC?

Glen
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#21
If I change the policy to launch xbmc, will things like external player support still work?
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#22
Robbio85 Wrote:I have it working in Windows 7 Ultimate using a local policy that only applies to my user account. The policy tells Windows to use XBMC as my shell instead of Explorer (so there's no start menu, just a wallpaper). This way XBMC is instantly launched upon (automatic) user log in.

Step 2 only works on Windows 7 Ultimate, Enterprise and Professional! (The group policy object editor is not available in other versions, thanks M$)

1. Setting up your user account to log in automatically
  • Log in as administrator.
  • Open the start menu, and type in the search box: netplwiz <ENTER>.
  • Uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer and hit Apply.
  • A window will pop up asking for the user name and password of the user account which should log in automatically. Supply all the information and hit OK.

Next time you restart, the account selected in step 1 will log on automatically. Now you can setup this account to use XBMC as shell instead of Explorer:

2. Set XBMC as shell for a specific user account
  • Log in as administrator.
  • Open the start menu, and type in the search box: mmc <ENTER>.
  • Choose File -> Add/Remove Snap-in....
  • Select Group Policy Object Editor and hit Add.
  • In the wizard that pops up, hit Browse..., go to tab Users, select your user account (the one that you set up to log on automatically in step 1) and hit OK.
  • Make sure that the checkbox in the wizard is Unchecked, and hit Finish.
  • Hit OK in the Add/Remove Snap-ins window.
  • In the User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System folder, open Custom User Interface.
  • Select Enabled and enter the full path (including XBMC.exe and any switches that you may use) in the Interface file name textbox.
  • Hit OK and reboot your system. It should now log in and start XBMC automatically without showing the start menu and icons first Smile
These instructions work great. Thanks!

How do I launch explorer.exe from inside of XBMC though? When I exit xbmc now, it's just a pitch black screen, instead of going back to Windows 7. Huh I'd like to auto-launch with XBMC, but still have the option of using Windows when I'm done.

ctrl+alt+del -> task manager -> start new -> explorer.exe does the trick. But I'm hoping there's a more user-friendly method.

Thanks again.
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#23
Tilted Wrote:These instructions work great. Thanks!

How do I launch explorer.exe from inside of XBMC though? When I exit xbmc now, it's just a pitch black screen, instead of going back to Windows 7. Huh I'd like to auto-launch with XBMC, but still have the option of using Windows when I'm done.

ctrl+alt+del -> task manager -> start new -> explorer.exe does the trick. But I'm hoping there's a more user-friendly method.

Thanks again.

This is how I achieved that:
-installed Evenghost
-I've set up Eventghost as a shell instead of XBMC.exe (following instructions by Robbio85)
-I've setup Eventghost to autostart XBMC with "Wait till application is terminated before proceding"
-I've setup Eventghost to start Explorer.exe after that.

So when XBMC is closed Eventghost starts windows explorer. I'm using sleep instead of shutdown as a default action when pressing that big blue button in XBMC so explorer.exe is never started when im closing down the htpc. Buttons on my HTPC and keyboard aswell work as Sleep.

Works great. Hope it helps.

I've added autostart of utorrent with /minimized option aswell to the eventghost because when explorer was turned off it didn't start with system, i can manage it with webui.

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#24
Hey guys, running into a few problems here trying to get my seamless xbmc startup going. Server 2008 R2, hardware listed in signature.

Everything works perfect using explorer.exe as shell, eventghost set to start on system startup, and xbmc set to autostart via eventghost.

Almost perfect using Group Policy Object Editor method: only problem is that I'm unable to sleep/wake or shutdown the computer, even if hitting ctrl alt del and hitting the shutdown button from the lock screen (weird, right?)

Using the eventghost as shell method, everything seems to load fine, but my MCE remote doesn't work at all. Alt-tabbing to eventghost shows that it's not even "seeing" the key presses, which it did without problem when explorer.exe is the shell. Oh, still no sleep/wake or shutdown either...

Suggestions please! :o

NS
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#25
NotShorty Wrote:Using the eventghost as shell method, everything seems to load fine, but my MCE remote doesn't work at all. Alt-tabbing to eventghost shows that it's not even "seeing" the key presses, which it did without problem when explorer.exe is the shell. Oh, still no sleep/wake or shutdown either...

Suggestions please! :o

NS


The only thing I can think of is that my eventghost in win 7, doesn't register any remote signals unless it is elevated (run as admin) I don't know if that relates to Server 2008 R2 though
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#26
Im having issues with the remote working also. Im not using eventghost, and most remote functions worked (enough for now) but after making xbmc the shell the remote no longer functions.


EDIT: It seems that the remote issue might be unrelated as after undoing the policy the remote still isnt working. Sad

EDIT 2: Uninstalled the remote and upon reinstallation it loaded different drivers.... all is good now.


Now I just need fix the suspend issue.
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#27
aptalca Wrote:The only thing I can think of is that my eventghost in win 7, doesn't register any remote signals unless it is elevated (run as admin) I don't know if that relates to Server 2008 R2 though

Eventghost is already launched as the shell. I didn't think you could get more "elevated" than that...

I've also noticed that if I launch with explorer.exe as shell, then End Process on it via Task Manager, XBMC and Eventghost do exactly what I want, so it seems that explorer.exe runs something on startup that Eventghost and XBMC don't when they're selected as the shell.

Anyone know where I can find what processes, services, etc. are launched with explorer.exe so that I can make sure Eventghost loads everything necessary? Apparently the methods I've used so far haven't done the job.

Thanks,
NS
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#28
Hi All ,

I have Eventghost set as my shell and it auto loads XBMC for me, can someone explain how I can set eventghost to quit XBMC upon sleep and re launch when it awakes, people keep mentioning it but i haven't found how to do it? Thanks

Also is I have a problem in using my remote to awaken the HTPC, the lights on my USB IR receiver dont light up after its puts to sleep. Not sure if its getting power, but the wireless dongle for my keyboard does and awakens the HTPC just fine, any help with this would be great too. Thanks
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#29
After hours and hours spent, I've finally found a working solution for this problem!

I have tried all the methods with putting a XBMC lnk into Windows 7 Autostart-folder, scheduling activites, autostart using Eventghost etc etc. with all different results but none of them working OK.

When I use the built in Windows Autostart-folder method, XBMC starts in fullscreen but in the background. I need to click with my mouse to bring XBMC "in front" to then be able to use my remote to control XBMC via Infra Red. (Same with scheduled activities)

When I use the Eventghost method, XBMC launches in fullscreen but then minimizes to Taskbar. Same problem here, need to use my mouse to get XBMC in front.

The problem is that other startup programs is starting after Windows 7 has started XBMC, which brings XBMC to background.
So the problem is, I need to delay XBMC's startup to make it start as the last program so it won't get into background.

And I used this little Visual basic-script to complete that;
Open Notepad and insert the following code.

Code:
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
delayseconds = 5
delayseconds = delayseconds *1000
wscript.sleep delayseconds
wshshell.run """C:\Program\XBMC\XBMC.lnk"""

delayseconds is the variable that holds the number of seconds you want to delay the startup-time. I'm currently using 5 seconds which seems to works fine for Windows 7. You can change it to whatever you want.

"C:\Program\XBMC\XBMC.lnk" is the shortcut that shall be started after 5 seconds. The reason why I'm using a .lnk file insted of the xbmc.exe file is because .lnk file has the target C:\Program\XBMC\XBMC.exe -fs , which -fs makes XBMC to boot into fullscreen.

Save your notepad-document as xbmc.vbs and put it into your Autostart folder. Make a shortcut with the target C:\Program\XBMC\XBMC.exe -fs and put into the XBMC-root folder, and then you're done!

I hope this may help some of you guys having trouble with launching XBMC into fullscreen straight after boot.
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#30
j_runbert Wrote:After hours and hours spent, I've finally found a working solution for this problem!

You can provide the command line argument "-d nnn" to XBMC.exe to make it delay for nnn seconds before starting e.g.

"C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe" -d 5

will delay for 5 seconds before starting.

Also note that the -fs command line argument is ignored in recent builds of XBMC.

JR
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