Full / maximised Screen Programs at start up for “vending machines / ticket machines”

Question

Just curious about the different ways vending machine companies / ticket companies get their application to run at startup full screen on a windows host machine.

Now first thing I am thinking is obvioulsy a link to the app in startup with a switch for -fullscreen.

There would be local / group policy as another option also.

Sidetracking a bit how do apps such as Skype work when they offer the "start skype when computer starts" option? registry?

Any thoughts / ideas / experience appreciated. Cheers

Answer 1

There are many ways to get an app to start automatically at Windows startup. The two most popular are

• putting it into the Autostart folder
• writing a special registry value (there is a kind of autostart section there)

I would guess most apps use one of these mechanisms.

As to "fullscreen mode", most kiosk-type systems / vending machines use a custom software as their GUI, so I guess that is developed to always run full-screen (there is no point in running it otherwise), so there no need to configure it for full-screen mode, it will always run like that.

Answer 2

With windows you do not have to have explorer.exe as your "shell".

The GPO settings "User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Custom user interface" can be set to be what ever you want - it could be a program, or a simple batch file.

So for example, you could have a batch file that - mapped a network drive, run a program, if that program terminates, the script then restarts the computer.

You would then use autologon for that computer to logon again and start the process all over again.

Answer 3

Most of the software add them to startup by creating a new REG_SZ value (with application path) at one (or more) of the following locations:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Userinit]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServicesOnce]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows]

NOTE: It may also be loaded from the [Load] or [Run] sections of your
WIN.INI file, found in the Windows directory, but you should not depend on it.

To start it in MAXIMIZED mode, you can design your application to resize itself to maximize mode on startup.