BigBox as Shell - Shutdown on exit?

[darryldale]

Loving the feature to set BigBox as shell and enabled it today.

Only thing I'm not loving is that when exiting BigBox I would have expected windows to shut down. This does not appear to be the case.

Any way to configure it to do so when leveraging this feature?

[Jason Carr]

27 minutes ago, darryldale said:

Loving the feature to set BigBox as shell and enabled it today.

Only thing I'm not loving is that when exiting BigBox I would have expected windows to shut down. This does not appear to be the case.

Any way to configure it to do so when leveraging this feature?

It's generally expected that you would use the "Shut Down" option provided in Big Box instead, in this scenario. Removing all options to exit probably wouldn't be a good idea. If you "Lock" Big Box and put in a pin, then you can use the security options to hide the Exit menu item if you'd like.

[darryldale]

I actually have done that. I've got BigBox locked down but have made available the "Shutdown" option in the menu.

Much easier to tell people "push that button to shutdown" instead of "go into the menu by pressing this button and then selecting shutdown from the menu".

[vaderag]

Slightly off topic but I've been using BB as a startup item - what's the benefit of doing things this way? And is it likely to cause me any issues with launching things?

[Jason Carr]

9 minutes ago, vaderag said:

Slightly off topic but I've been using BB as a startup item - what's the benefit of doing things this way? And is it likely to cause me any issues with launching things?

That is a better way to do it if you use your computer for other things outside of Big Box. Most likely using Big Box as the Windows shell won't cause you any problems otherwise, but it's possible. You can always enable it and then disable it if you run into issues.

[vaderag]

1 hour ago, Jason Carr said:

That is a better way to do it if you use your computer for other things outside of Big Box. Most likely using Big Box as the Windows shell won't cause you any problems otherwise, but it's possible. You can always enable it and then disable it if you run into issues.

Okay fair enough - will give it a try

I'm only using the machine for BigBox - its an arcade cab - so this seems geared to me as a user, but I'm just not sure the pros/cons
What happens if I need to exit big box to load LB and add some games or whatever?

[Jason Carr]

2 hours ago, vaderag said:

Okay fair enough - will give it a try

I'm only using the machine for BigBox - its an arcade cab - so this seems geared to me as a user, but I'm just not sure the pros/cons
What happens if I need to exit big box to load LB and add some games or whatever?

If that is a regular occurrence, then you probably won't want to use the shell feature. You can easily start up Task Manager to do whatever you need, but it's definitely not convenient.

[zdsearcy]

Anybody else having trouble getting the Shell feature to work properly? Mine starts up with just a single file window open, rather than Big Box (but also not Explorer.exe). I can navigate to Big Box from there, but it doesn't open Big Box by default. 

[Jason Carr]

40 minutes ago, zdsearcy said:

Anybody else having trouble getting the Shell feature to work properly? Mine starts up with just a single file window open, rather than Big Box (but also not Explorer.exe). I can navigate to Big Box from there, but it doesn't open Big Box by default. 

What version of Windows are you running?

[zdsearcy]

16 hours ago, Jason Carr said:

What version of Windows are you running?

Windows 10 Pro. I was able to work around the issue by using Kodi4Launcher's built-in Shell feature and pointing it to Big Box. Not sure why the Big Box one isn't functioning similarly. 

[angryherbalist]

6 hours ago, zdsearcy said:

Windows 10 Pro. I was able to work around the issue by using Kodi4Launcher's built-in Shell feature and pointing it to Big Box. Not sure why the Big Box one isn't functioning similarly. 

So you disabled the bigbox as shell new option, used kodi4launcher but instead of launching xbmc/kodi, you can use bb?

can you then hit the power button and it properly shuts stuff down?

im looking for something where i hit power button and it boots into bb, then hit power and it exits bb and shuts down cleanly. 

is this doable?

[angryherbalist]

So just to follow up.  

 

this was uber simple.  i had to disable user logins but otherwise u flip this switch, set a pin, and disable show exit when locked, so basically the only exit option is SHUTDOWN.  

from pushing power to startup video is 19 seconds.  

[spotUP]

I love the new bigbox shell feature. I use it instead of instant sheller now.

There is one thing that instant sheller does better though, it hides the login, windows startup and mouse, so that you don’t see any trace of windows when booting. Can bigbox be improved to hide it as well?

[angryherbalist]

4 hours ago, spotUP said:

I love the new bigbox shell feature. I use it instead of instant sheller now.

There is one thing that instant sheller does better though, it hides the login, windows startup and mouse, so that you don’t see any trace of windows when booting. Can bigbox be improved to hide it as well?

i did this, found on a reddit thread:

disable user login:

1. Press Windows+R, type regedit and click OK;

2. Access the path below in the registry editor:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\PasswordLess\Device

 

1. Double-click DevicePasswordLessBuildVersion;

2. Set your value data to 0 and click OK.

3. Restart your computer.

 

Then access netplwiz again and check if the option appears.

 

1. Press Windows+R, type netplwiz and click OK;

2. Uncheck the “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” box;

3. Confirm with “Apply” and then enter the password/confirmation of the current password and click “OK”;

4. Restart the device and it will automatically log on.

 

[megashub]

1 hour ago, angryherbalist said:

i did this, found on a reddit thread:

disable user login:

1. Press Windows+R, type regedit and click OK;

2. Access the path below in the registry editor:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\PasswordLess\Device

 

1. Double-click DevicePasswordLessBuildVersion;

2. Set your value data to 0 and click OK.

3. Restart your computer.

 

Then access netplwiz again and check if the option appears.

 

1. Press Windows+R, type netplwiz and click OK;

2. Uncheck the “Users must enter a username and password to use this computer” box;

3. Confirm with “Apply” and then enter the password/confirmation of the current password and click “OK”;

4. Restart the device and it will automatically log on.

 

Is the user running Launchbox still authorized to install software? Seems pretty risky to not require authentication unless it's put into some kind of isolated kiosk mode.

[angryherbalist]

i unplug from machine from the internet.  a can builder i know strips out all AV software as he says it bloats it.  ‘just dont go online!’

[Jason Carr]

3 hours ago, megashub said:

Is the user running Launchbox still authorized to install software? Seems pretty risky to not require authentication unless it's put into some kind of isolated kiosk mode.

This does not require giving the machine/user administrator rights.

[megashub]

42 minutes ago, Jason Carr said:

This does not require giving the machine/user administrator rights.

Right, but a normal, unprivileged user is still able to install software.

[C-Beats]

Point of the feature is to cleanly boot into Big Box on startup, not make Big Box a security suite for your PC. If you don't want users installing software, don't put any uninstalled game in your visible collection in Big Box. Even better yet, don't allow people access to your computer you can't trust not to do something like that in the first place.

[tkssitch]

On 1/18/2023 at 8:23 PM, darryldale said:

Loving the feature to set BigBox as shell and enabled it today.

Only thing I'm not loving is that when exiting BigBox I would have expected windows to shut down. This does not appear to be the case.

Any way to configure it to do so when leveraging this feature?

I have mine setup with a "Platform" call "Shutdown" and contains .bat files for Shutdown and Reboot.  That could be a method you can try. I use that method so I can keep other people from accessing the Bigbox menu, which does contain a lot of options, if someone who doesn't know better can mess up a lot of things.