Instant sheller

tmc · Post by **tmc** » February 25th, 2010, 1:17 pm

Anyone here have any eperience with instant sheller? is it good, bad idea?

It's the last step i have to take with my mame machine and i'm a little bit apprehensive.

Any reasons why I shouldn't use it?

Is it easy to roll back the shelling if you want to play with windows again?

I see there is an option to replace the windows start up screen with one of your own - can this be any image or does it have to abide by the 'set size - 8 bit - 16 colour picture', the sample pictures in the sheller folder don't seem to abide by this so it makes me think the program inserts a 'fake' splash screen that can be of any properties? or maybe it converts it for you?

I don't know and i hope that makes sense to someone, it's a nightmare trying to explain something you don't understand!

Thanks for your time.

Post by **gargoyle67** » February 25th, 2010, 1:51 pm

Instant Sheller is a very easy to use program, Yes the picture has to conform to size and color limitations for a loading screen(plenty of custom loading screens on the net just do a search). If you want to revert back from the sheller settings you just run sheller again and hit undo, Easy as that

.
When I set up both my sisters HTPC's I used sheller on them and just pointed it towards my meedio front end for auto load. I don't use it for my candy cab though as it's a pain in the **** if a emu crashes and you've just got nice wallpaper blank desktop to look at

You have to then run task manager and run programs through that to get anything running

. So I just have my desktop icons removed and the taskbar on auto hide, My win XP boots straight into my arcade front end with the front end program being in the windows start folder for auto running

.

tmc · Post by **tmc** » February 25th, 2010, 2:33 pm

have you hidden or changed your startup login and shutdown screens gargoyle?

Post by **gargoyle67** » February 25th, 2010, 3:00 pm

Yes I have mame loading screen and no login or shutdown screens.

tmc · Post by **tmc** » February 25th, 2010, 4:56 pm

would you mind briefly pointing me in the right direction to hide mine also. It might save having to instant shell at all.

I'm not expect a hand hold walkthrough but just a pointer to where or what to search under on google. thanks.

Post by **Mellor** » February 25th, 2010, 6:03 pm

I found it a little awkward to remove again. As said you just have to load the program and undo it. But I had it turn the mouse pointer to a small black speck which is almost impossible to find on the screen. All I did in the end though was Ctrl+Alt+Del and then open a command promt. Then navigate that way and undo it. Doesn't bother me enough not to have its benefits and I shall use it again on the current project. I used a custom load screen but it did have to be altered to an exact size in Photoshop, I forget what the size was. The only computer like bit on the machine was then a quick second bios flash screen.

Post by **gargoyle67** » February 25th, 2010, 6:41 pm

I used instant sheller to remove login\shutdown, You don't have to use all the options like the problem above with the mouse pointer, You can just select what you want from the program. I just did't choose to hide the mouse pointer or taskbar within it.

tmc · Post by **tmc** » February 26th, 2010, 1:05 am

thats perfect! thanks a lot!

tmc · Post by **tmc** » March 28th, 2010, 2:34 pm

Gargoyle - I'm basically trying to do what you did re: instant sheller and remove the login/ shutdown screens whilst keeping access to task bar (on auto hide), however, using the latest version of sheller, when i choose the 'hide login/ shiutdown screens' option, then my taskbar and desktop goes also!

I'd like easy access to the desktop and your seemed the best solution. is there any chance you could see what version of instant sheller you're using and let me know, maybe it has options or works in a way that the latest version dosn't.

Thanks - really want to put this mame setup to bed and be done with it now! final push!...

Post by **gargoyle67** » March 29th, 2010, 4:33 pm

Sorry I don't use instant sheller now, I use a custom login\out screen I'll take a few pics later.

tmc · Post by **tmc** » March 29th, 2010, 6:43 pm

right - any chance you could point me in the direction of how to replace them? i've trawled the net but the methods for changing registry entries and warning about having to reinstall if it goes wrong have really put me off - i've put enough time into this mame project as it is!

Just wanna kill off the jarring blue windows screens!

thanks.

Post by **gargoyle67** » March 30th, 2010, 6:00 pm

Sorry to take a while to get back to you, I use TuneUp-Utilities-2008 to change my default screens:
Which has 30 trial but you only need about 30 seconds to change what you want

http://download.cnet.com/TuneUp-Utiliti ... 87492.html"

My loading screen:

My login\Out, Which looks greenish here but in fact is virtually the same blue as the boot screen.

tmc · Post by **tmc** » March 30th, 2010, 6:52 pm

Great! i'll try that route - thanks for the reply gargoyle!

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