How to hide the PC and make it more Jukebox like

[kizer]

I have an intrest as well as jonfinpausa to make my windows based machine more less obvious that its a PC and a real digital Jukebox.

Does anybody have an tips?

I know we need to hide the boot login screen
I know we need to hide the login/password screen
I know we need to hide any other messages that popup
I know we need to hide the taskbar and any other windows that might showup

Any other hints or ideas? Im personally running on Windows2k, but Im willing to try XP if needed and maybe even MiniXP or something else that is stripped down. I also use my machine and really like the use of its wireless internet connection for grabbing covers and tagging MP3 files when I do rip.

[Barcrest]

Hide the login screen...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234562


Disable other messages that pop up....

Go into the control panel and find services and disable the messenger service. You should have this service disabled anyway as it's used for spam attacks etc...


Make freebox the shell....
(Windows 2000)
You will be required to modify the system.ini file to replace the Shell line. Be sure that whatever directory you place the .exe and and supporting files in conforms to the DOS 8.3 naming standard.


Change Boot Screen
(Windows 2000)
http://www.littlewhitedog.com/content-9.html

3rd party software method (Free for none commercial use)
http://www.stardock.com/products/bootskin/

[jonfinpausa]

We will also need to hide the Windows is shutting down screen when Freebox is closed or the Jukebox is turned off.

Keep in mind someone will have to be adding new albums to the jukebox so we will need a back door to the desktop so we can load the new music into the computer.

Fish

[Barcrest]

We will also need to hide the Windows is shutting down screen when Freebox is closed or the Jukebox is turned off.

Keep in mind someone will have to be adding new albums to the jukebox so we will need a back door to the desktop so we can load the new music into the computer.

Fish

Set up your power management properly and the pc should shut off and not display that screen. If you have a decent motherboard you can also set it to turn on after power loss. This is great because you can shutdown freebox and it shuts the whole pc off. Then when you plug the  jukebox machine in it turns on right away no need for a pc power switch.

[jonfinpausa]

I used Stardock and it seems to work ok but Id rather hard code it then use a program to make the changes.

Barry, for the shell,
where in the ini do we make the change and are you refering to the path and exe file for freebox?

Fish

[Barcrest]

I used Stardock and it seems to work ok but Id rather hard code it then use a program to make the changes.

Barry, for the shell,
where in the ini do we make the change and are you refering to the path and exe file for freebox?

Fish

The line that says shell=

[jonfinpausa]

ahhh ok.. DOH !!! LOL and I guess you add the path to freebox.exe right?

[kizer]

Mabye enter hibranate mode instead or soemthing like that?

As for adding new albums I do the following.
Audiograbber to E:\Rips
http://musicbrainz.org/ aka Magic MP3 Tagger to its correct location in the jukebox location
Then I use album grabber which grabs the album cover.

For all intensive puposes the user never sees the desktop. However they would see the file system using the Magic MP3 Tagger and album cover grabber if they look. Heck as well they could using audio grabber.

Ive been looking for a command line way to rip with Audio Grabber, but nobody seems to know how.

[Barcrest]

You can rip using the command line with this apparently but it's not cheap.

http://www.mystikmedia.com/audiocommander.asp

[jonfinpausa]

Here is how to use a Freebox shell in XP

Changing the default shell (all users):

1) open regedit (start menu > run, and type in regedit)
2) go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.
3) Change Shell from explorer.exe to the new shell path e.g C:\Program Files\Freebox V2\freebox.exe
4) log out and log back in.

Changing the default shell (only current user):

1) open regedit (start menu > run, and type in regedit).
2) go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.
3) add a new string value (Edit > New > String Value) called shell. and set the value to the path of the new shell e.g C:\Program Files\Freebox V2\freebox.exe
4) log out and log back in.

If you shutdown freebox you will need to use ALT+CTRL+DEL to open the task manager then click on file new task and type explorer.exe
This will open a explorer window and you can update or do what you want.Then just restart or use the shutdown in the task manager

[kizer]

You can rip using the command line with this apparently but it's not cheap.

http://www.mystikmedia.com/audiocommander.asp

I tried the demo and it gave me a few cant write error messages. Of course that doesn't mean much because my command line switches could be well messed up. I'll play with it some more later and report back.

Thanks for the URL too.

Welp i gave up on command line on that app. Kicked my butt, however I did play with GUI and honestly AudioGrabber is still king and it tags the files correctly unlike the above program.

[kizer]

Welp Im having issues finding a command line ripper, but I did find a command line burner.
http://www.commandburner.com/

[jonfinpausa]

You can edit your XP BOOT.ini file to remove the XP splash screen when the computer boots.
change the line to the one listed below, notice at the end its says /noguiboot
thats what takes away the splash screen

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Embedded"  /fastdetect /noguiboot

Im still working on the welcome screen, I would love to replace that with my own graphic screen like loading freebox jukebox

[Barcrest]

I posted how to get rid of the welcome screen... you need one account which is admin with no password and it will log right in...

[coffee]

My only problem is the Welcome screen and the shutdown screen.