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Big Box - Launch on Startup Catch 22...


starpower

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Hello everyone. I'm fine tuning my setup and ultimately I want it to boot directly into BigBox. I'm running into a bit of a unique problem and I hope someone may have a solution.

I am currently running BigBox as an Admin, and when I put a shortcut of BigBox in the Startup folder it won't run on startup. 

If I don't run BigBox as an Admin, it WILL run on startup, but it will freeze and not load. 

So close. So far. Thank you in advance.

 

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17 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

Have you tried making BigBox your Windows shell ?

You can use a program like bsetshell found at this like to make it your shell and if you don't like that for any reason you can switch it back.

http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/

I am still getting familiar with Windows, so while I don't know what that is and therefore haven't done it - I am willing to do it if you can explain how to and what it does.

I downloaded bsetshell but, what do I select or input?

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The shell if your Windows interface, like your taskbar and start button, this can be replaced with alternative shells. Traditionally in the past these were used to help Windows perform better and be more stable, especially back in the Windows 95 / 98 era. You can Set BigBox as your shell if you want to avoid seeing the taskbar and have Windows just start into BigBox. Of course the draw back to this is you will no longer have access to the task bar and start menu while BigBox is your shell but you can change it back to Explorer if you need to. To change back close BigBox, then bring up your Task Manager > click File > New Task and use the window to navigate to and run bsetshell and change it back.58c4fc7a5449e_2017-03-1203_44_47-bsetshell.jpg.e9e21aa904ebaf3e707769f12baff54e.jpgPut the path to your BigBox.exe then click Set & Logout, log back in. To change back run bsetshell like I described above and pick Explorer then Set & Logout again and log back in again.

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Thank you @lordmonkus and @Rincewind for your suggestions.

@lordmonkus - I did exactly what you said. And it didn't work. I wish I had more to report other than that but it logged me out. Logged me back in and nothing happened from there. I was just at the Windows Finder.

@Rincewind I tried the BigBox Launcher, and it throws up flags for windows defender. I'm a new windows user, so I had to use a mac to even get the files onto the PC, and then it deleted them. So I had to figure out how to disable that. Once I did get it up and running it also didn't seem to work as advertised and wouldn't load BigBox.

I am honestly blown away that it is this difficult to load a program on launch. I would love LaunchBox to provide a video on how to do this as I am clearly not the only one with this problem and it would round out the full experience. Other than this one little detail, my system is just like a console. But because I can't boot to BigBox I need to use the keyboard and it kills the experience and the wow factor that I built a video game system and not just a computer. 

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I will do some more tinkering and see what I can do. This is my first computer build and first time running a Windows machine (mac guy) so everything is very foreign for me. 

I would love to not run things as Admin, at this point I am doing the only things that work and/or make sense. 

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On 3/11/2017 at 9:36 PM, starpower said:

Hello everyone. I'm fine tuning my setup and ultimately I want it to boot directly into BigBox. I'm running into a bit of a unique problem and I hope someone may have a solution.

I am currently running BigBox as an Admin, and when I put a shortcut of BigBox in the Startup folder it won't run on startup. 

If I don't run BigBox as an Admin, it WILL run on startup, but it will freeze and not load. 

So close. So far. Thank you in advance.

 

How are you adding BB to startup? Using a shortcut or just copying the bigbox.exe file into a startup folder? And what exact folder including the full path is the startup folder you are using?

Are you using Win7/8/10?

Does a shortcut to notepad startup notepad if you put it in the startup folder?

Does Bigbox run ok if you just try to double click on it manually?

 

Edited by ckp
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On 3/15/2017 at 10:51 AM, ckp said:

How are you adding BB to startup? Using a shortcut or just copying the bigbox.exe file into a startup folder? And what exact folder including the full path is the startup folder you are using?

- I am adding a shortcut to where BigBox is installed, not adding BigBox directly to the startup folder.

- Startup folder is: C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Are you using Win7/8/10?

- Win 10

Does a shortcut to notepad startup notepad if you put it in the startup folder?

- Yes it does.

Does Bigbox run ok if you just try to double click on it manually?

- Yes

After doing some tinkering after running through your questions, I realized that Launchbox and Bigbox were both being run as Admin. I figured I would try to turn off running it as an Admin to see what happens and... that seemed to work. 

The shortcut to BigBox which previously didn't work (with or without Admin) worked fine once the Admin was deselected from Launchbox. 

Additionally, I also had 'bsetshell' running (unbeknownst to me from an earlier attempt) so when I did uncheck admin on both those files, bsetshell kicked in and it booted directly to BigBox on start - exactly what I wanted (thank you @lordmonkus).

I will happily admit that my lack of knowledge in the Windows space added to some of the confusion. Thank you all for your help with this. After spending hours tweaking Launchbox, to have this last piece haunt me for hours and days was really getting to me! Now I'm reaching the point of being crazy proud to show off what I have. Again, thank you all & Launchbox team!

EDIT: Spoke too soon. Everything looked like it was up and running, but when I actually went to play a game BigBox threw up "An error occurred while trying to launch the game: The requested operation requires elevation."

I selected BigBox only to run as admin and that allowed me to play the game. However, in doing so, I lost my ability to load BigBox via the \Programs\Start menu as a shortcut. Which - I believe - brings me full circle to my original problem. THAT SAID... I now understand how to make bsetshell work, and it will give me the setup I want. Getting back to the Windows finder is a hassle if I want to tweak something, but it is doable. Given what I know, I am not thrilled, but happy with this current solution. 

Quote

 

 

Edited by starpower
Wrote comment after booting up BigBox, but not before booting a game.
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When I played with using bsetshell I created a platform in BB callled utilities and add the program so if I needed to get back to File Explorer as my shell I had easy access to it right from inside the porgram. Also there is something wrong if you are getting that elevation issue that isn't normal behavior for the program

Edited by DOS76
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On 3/17/2017 at 4:54 AM, DOS76 said:

When I played with using bsetshell I created a platform in BB callled utilities and add the program so if I needed to get back to File Explorer as my shell I had easy access to it right from inside the porgram. Also there is something wrong if you are getting that elevation issue that isn't normal behavior for the program

That is extremely clever. Thank you for the tip!

Any recommendation on how to troubleshoot the elevation issue further? I'm in unfamiliar territory and would like things running properly.

Edited by starpower
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  • 1 year later...

Hey Guys, im in the process of shelling my system and have hit a hurdle....i can get it to launch straight into BigBox but i have no controls...Joy2Key is not loading now. Is there a way to get that program up and going in the background as the system boots into BigBox? Have looked through the forums and couldnt find a thread...Thanks

Edited by DEADBYDAWN77
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