setting media center as shell (1 Viewer)

[Anonymous]

it would be nice to be able to set media center as system shell.
but then it would have to get some added functionality, like starting windows startup programs from the registry, wich explorer normally handles.

by setting media portal as shell, explorer does not load at startup and you get a lot of extra recources, so media portal gets faster.

also, when you run explorer.exe from media portal when explorer is not set as shell, it does not start up the taskbar and desktop, it just boots a single explorer window.

it currently does not work with media portal, it gave me an error message. in theory it should work with any program.. but with some boot delay, if a program is specially written to act as a system shell this delay is gone.

some features that would be nice, when media portal starts as a shell.
system tray and some way to view a list of currently running programs. and a link to "my computer" for browsing. and starting windows startup programs from the registry, otherwise some peoples virusscanner wont startup.

I think it would be a realy good feature, and i don't believe there is much more programming needed for these functions. just the system tray can give some problems. perhaps taking a look at litestep could help...

 

[Anonymous]

yeah i think it is a good idea for this media center to be as a shell yeah it would replace windows explorer i think it is a great idea for that.

this is off the subject i think MP should ass like games to the shell too like emulators and free roms i know there is free roms out there too and free emulators too and you shuld think about adding pc games too.

 

[Morten]

On my system, explorer consumes a mere total of 12124K and 0% of CPU time.
So I don't really see the big gain here.
-And if you plan to run it as ashell then I assume you'll be using a dedicated comuter, without a lot of other crap running.

The idea sounded nice, but after thinking about it I just don't see the advantage/gain.

But hey, please convince me or prove me wrong
and it's bloody late, so I might be getting cross eyed :shock:

//Morten

 

[Anonymous]

yes i'm running another pc for the media i don't running things on 1 pc.

 

[Anonymous]

maybe you don't think 12 MB of memory is much, but its alot to my standards. after a fresh boot my system takes about 100 MB space in ram, so closing down explorer frees up 12% of recources.

media portal takes about 58 MB, wich is alot, but by closing explorer.exe you free up 12 mb, thus making media portal only a 46MB load on your ram.
when tweaking for ultimate performance, every little bit helps.

If you have 1 Gb of ram this does not matter much, i admit.

and on a second note, if media portal starts as a shel it is much more fun to use. you push on your media pc, and media portal boots directly, no more start menu, no more desktop and extras. just pure media portal.8)

you could also make use of windows buttons. or you could use an external explorer window over media portal withouth that ugly task bar apearing again.

this adds to the feeling of having a cool media device, making you forget windows is even installed on it, and it improves ease of use for your grandparents or someone who doesn't know much about computers. :roll:

it should look, feel, taste and act like a media portal, not like winblows xp.

Dimitri

 

[mama]

I fully agree with Dimitri on the second note.

 

[CoolHammer]

Setting MP as a shell is one of those things that make htpc COOL !!
I would like to see that, with MP my HTPC would be more like set top box instead a PC.

I have searhed a bit from net, but havent found a way to make .NET program a shell replacement. Anyone havig a good link how to make sucha a program?

Definetely thing to look for.

CoolHammer

 

[Anonymous]

there is a tool to use any program as the windows shell.
http://www.astonshell.com/aston/utilit.htm this tool just changes one registry setting.

namely
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"Shell"="explorer.exe"

change shell in this

"Shell"="'path to media portal' ,svchost.exe"
svchost.exe is needed for some windows functions.

the tool from aston, wich i linked above, does this for you. litstep has a similar tool, but i didn't find a link to it. and litestep is open source i think, so probably the tool from litsestep could be bundled with media portal.

this functionality could be provided as an option in the media portal installer.


normally media portal should be able to run as shell already, normaly you can use any program you want as shell. but there seems to be some bug in media portal, when it tries to start as shell, it gives an error and closes.

anyway, perhaps this bug is fixed already, i didn't try it with the latest release.

but to be able to run media portal as shell sucesfully it shoul also run the programs that are suposed to run at windows startup, explorer.exe reads these entrys from the registry and some other places. if you set media portal as shell now, your firewall, virusscanner, and other programs do not start.

and the other features i mentioned in previous posts should be nice then to, especially a system tray would be a nice feature.

greetings,
dimitri

 

[Anonymous]

sorry, but the program i linked above does not allow you to choose a custom shell

my apologies

Dimitri

 

[Morten]

Allright I'll admin that it would be a nice feature for the livingroom, if you could boot straigh into MP.

I've got at different approch to MP, I've got it centraly, and distributing the picture via Russound CAV 6.6.

BTW, MP only takes up 19MB on my system.....

I'm really lobbying for a sever /client architecture ;-)

//Morten